KYIV, Ukraine\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Leaders from Europe and Canada held talks Tuesday on U.S.-led peace efforts to end the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine, as Moscow and Kyiv sparred over Russian claims, denied by Ukraine, of a mass drone attack on a lakeside residence used by President Vladimir Putin.<\/p>\n
The virtual meeting included European leaders as well as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, heads of European institutions and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, according to Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeace is on the horizon,\u201d Tusk told a Polish Cabinet meeting. But he added: \u201cIt is still far from a 100% certainty.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the first meeting of European leaders since President Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at his Florida resort on Sunday. Trump insisted that Ukraine and Russia are \u201ccloser than ever before\u201d to a peace settlement, although he acknowledged that outstanding obstacles could still prevent a deal.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are moving the peace process forward,\u201d German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who attended the talks, said in a post on X. \u201cTransparency and honesty are now required from everyone \u2014 including Russia.\u201d<\/p>\n
His pointed reference to Russia came after Russian and Ukrainian officials exchanged bitter accusations over Moscow\u2019s allegations that Ukraine attempted to attack the Russian leader\u2019s residence in northwestern Russia with 91 long-range drones almost immediately after Trump\u2019s Sunday talks with Zelensky.<\/p>\n
The claims and counterclaims threatened to derail peace efforts. \u201cI don\u2019t like it. It\u2019s not good,\u201d Trump said Monday after Putin told him by phone about the alleged attack.<\/p>\n
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha noted Tuesday that Russia \u201cstill hasn\u2019t provided any plausible evidence\u201d to support its allegations.<\/p>\n
Moscow won\u2019t do so because \u201cno such attack happened,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n
\u201cRussia has a long record of false claims,\u201d he added, referencing the Kremlin\u2019s denials it intended to attack Ukraine ahead of its Feb. 24, 2022, all-out invasion of its neighbor.<\/p>\n
Zelensky, speaking Monday, also branded the allegation as \u201canother lie\u201d from Moscow designed to sabotage peace efforts.<\/p>\n
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov countered Tuesday that the alleged Ukrainian attack is \u201caimed at thwarting President Trump\u2019s efforts to promote a peaceful resolution\u201d to the war.<\/p>\n
Russia and Ukraine have throughout the war exchanged accusations about attacks that cannot be independently verified because of the fighting.<\/p>\n
Peskov didn\u2019t say whether Moscow would present physical evidence of the attack, such as drone wreckage, saying that such a step would be a matter for Russia\u2019s military. \u201cI don\u2019t think there needs to be any evidence here,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The rural Novgorod region is home to one of the Russian presidency\u2019s official residences, Dolgie Borody, close to the town of Valdai, about 250 miles northwest of Moscow. The area has been used to host a vacation retreat for high-ranking government officials since the Soviet era.<\/p>\n
The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said that since Trump launched a diplomatic push at the start of the year to end the war, \u201cthe Kremlin has sought to delay and prolong peace negotiations in order to continue its war undisturbed, prevent the U.S. from imposing measures intended to pressure Russia into meaningful negotiations, and even to extract concessions about bilateral U.S.-Russian relations.\u201d<\/p>\n
Novikov and Davies write for the Associated Press. Davies reported from Leicester, England. AP writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"KYIV, Ukraine\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Leaders from Europe and Canada held talks Tuesday on U.S.-led peace efforts to end the nearly four-year…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":662902,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7655],"tags":[199405,11413,202512,943,299,201240,6214,2301,1551,7675,332,37601,202511,657,21151],"class_list":{"0":"post-662901","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-russia","8":"tag-allegation","9":"tag-attack","10":"tag-bitter-accusation","11":"tag-canada","12":"tag-europe","13":"tag-four-year-war","14":"tag-leader","15":"tag-moscow","16":"tag-president-trump","17":"tag-residence","18":"tag-russia","19":"tag-sunday","20":"tag-u-s-led-peace-effort","21":"tag-ukraine","22":"tag-zelensky"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115809669855376966","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=662901"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/662901\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/662902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=662901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=662901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=662901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}