Senior US officials have been urging Ukraine in recent weeks to show it is still open to diplomatic talks with Russia, amid concerns that public support for the country’s war effort could wane with no end in sight to the conflict and neither side willing to begin peace talks, sources familiar with the discussions told CNN.
The talks are not aimed at encouraging Ukrainians to negotiate now – instead, the US wants Kyiv to convey more clearly that it wants to find a solution to the conflict and that Ukraine has the moral high ground, the sources said.
Officials, including National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, began pressing Ukrainians more urgently to change their rhetoric after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky signed a decree in early October barring any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin. This decree came in response to Russia’s self-proclaimed annexation of territory in eastern Ukraine following sham referendums there.
“We are ready for dialogue with Russia, but with another president of Russia,” Zelensky said last month.
Sullivan discussed the issue directly with Zelensky during a trip to Kyiv last week, the sources said. He expressed the US view that categorically blocking any conversation with Putin plays well with the Russian leader, feeding the Kremlin’s narrative that Ukrainians refuse to talk.
On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was “open to” negotiations with Ukraine, but “at the moment we don’t see such an opportunity because Kyiv has passed [their decision] not to continue any negotiation”.
The Washington Post first reported that the US is urging Ukraine to be open to talks.
The advice to Ukrainians also comes ahead of a tough winter for Europe, which is already experiencing a sharp rise in energy costs linked to the Russian invasion and has warned of possible blackouts and gas rationing due to the energy crisis.
“I don’t think they are naive that now is the time for talks. We’re just talking about talks more,” a Western official told CNN, referring to the White House. “They recognize that there is no clear signal from the Russians that they are open to serious negotiations.”
“You can get everyone to agree at first, but the devil is in the details,” the official added.
Back in the US, Republicans have also begun to signal that they may be less willing to support Ukraine financially and militarily if the GOP regains control of the House of Representatives.
“I think there needs to be accountability going forward,” House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy told CNN. “You always need, not a blank check, but make sure the resources are going where they are needed. And make sure that Congress and the Senate have an opportunity to discuss it openly.”
Sullivan also spoke with Russian officials, including his Russian counterpart Nikolai Patrushev and Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, about de-escalating the Kremlin’s rhetoric around the war, sources said, and the consequences if Russia moves forward with using nuclear weapon.
Zelensky has said repeatedly over the last eight months of the war that Ukraine is willing to engage in diplomatic talks with the Russians, and the US understands why it would not want to sit down with the man who bombs his country every day. As such, US officials have not tried to push Ukraine to the negotiating table, the sources said, especially since it is clear that Russia has shown no willingness to negotiate either.
Rather, the U.S.’s most immediate goal was simply to try to get the Ukrainians to change their messaging strategy, the sources added, so that the country would maintain the international coalition of economic and military support for as long as needed.
“The United States will be with Ukraine for as long as it takes in this fight,” Sullivan said in Kyiv last week. “There will be no wavering, no flags, no flinching in our support as we move forward.”
After Sullivan left Kyiv, Zelensky said in his nightly remarks that “we are ready for peace, for a fair and just peace, the formula of which we have expressed many times. People know our position. This is respect for the Charter of the United Nations, respect for our territorial integrity, respect for our people and due responsibility for terrorism – this is punishment for all those who are guilty and full compensation from Russia for the damage caused to us ».
State Department spokesman Ned Price said any diplomatic solution would have to be worked out by Ukraine and Russia and declined to weigh in on what the negotiations might look like. But asked if there could be a diplomatic solution without regime change in Russia, Price said regime change is not the goal of the US or the Ukrainians.
The talks also come as some US officials question the ability of Ukraine’s armed forces to fully remove Russia from all areas it has seized in Ukraine – a concern the US has kept private for months.
Zelensky has stated that Kiev’s goal is to liberate all of Ukraine, including Crimea, and that Ukraine’s military has repeatedly exceeded most Western expectations. But Russia is preparing defense lines designed to slow Ukraine’s advances, and Ukraine’s counterattacks in the east and south are still relatively small compared to the size of the occupied territories, even though they have reclaimed thousands of square kilometers.
The speed of the initial advance has turned into a slower, more brutal battle along the frontline that changes less and less by the week. And with winter fast approaching, one defense official says the battlefield is likely to become more static and less dynamic. This could create a window for diplomacy as an outright military victory becomes increasingly unlikely for either Russia or Ukraine.
The outcome of the fighting around Kherson in southern Ukraine may become clear in the next two to three weeks, the official added.
This is not the first time that the US and Ukraine have disagreed over war messaging. US officials have urged Ukrainian officials, including Zelensky, to appear more outwardly grateful for the help they have received from the West.
In a phone call with US President Joe Biden in June to discuss another US$1 billion aid package to Ukraine, Zelensky listed the additional equipment and weapons Ukraine still needed—in response, Biden was “direct ” with Zelensky about his belief that the U.S. is already doing everything it can to help the country, a source familiar with the conversation said.
As CNN previously reported, in addition, tensions between Zelensky and Biden administration officials rose in the weeks before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, amid disagreement over how to interpret and publicly share U.S. intelligence assessments that said that Russia could be preparing a large-scale attack on Ukraine.
