(Reuters) – The United States is coming round to an understanding of Russia’s positions on key issues including the Ukraine conflict, a top Kremlin aide said on Thursday.
“It is clear, so it seems to me anyway, that there is an understanding of what we are trying to achieve as a result of this situation,” Yuri Ushakov, a Soviet and Russian diplomat and former ambassador to Washington, told a reporter for Russian state television in comments posted on Telegram.
“And to some extent, our demands, our thinking, our proposals are being taken into account. Not all of them. But the process is under way.”
Ushakov also said he noted movement towards an improvement in ties between Washington and Moscow after the breakdown triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump has softened the position of the previous administration of President Joe Biden towards Russia, particularly as regards the Ukraine conflict.
Some comments by U.S. officials, like Trump envoy Steve Witkoff, have sometimes seemed to echo Kremlin narratives.
Russia stands by its demands that Ukraine give up in full all four regions that Moscow’s troops have partially occupied in Ukraine’s east and south.
Moscow also says it wants resolved what it calls the root causes behind the conflict, including the rejection of any notion of Ukraine joining the NATO alliance and the “denazification” of Kyiv’s leaders.
There have been suggestions on both sides that Trump may meet Kremlin leader Vladimir Putin, though no date has yet been set.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov this week described a meeting between the two presidents as “certainly necessary” but added that it “has to be prepared accordingly”.
Ushakov acknowledged that each side was probably not entirely happy with what the other was saying.
“Yes, we have probably disappointed them in one thing or another,” he said. “They have also disappointed us. Perhaps more than we have disappointed them.”
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Stephen Coates)
