Kremlin: Deal to End War Not Fast      04/30 06:20

   Clinching a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war "is far too complex to be 
done quickly," a senior Kremlin official said Wednesday, as the U.S. labors to 
bring momentum to peace efforts and expresses frustration over the slow 
progress.

   KYIV, Ukraine (AP) -- Clinching a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war "is far 
too complex to be done quickly," a senior Kremlin official said Wednesday, as 
the U.S. labors to bring momentum to peace efforts and expresses frustration 
over the slow progress.

   Meanwhile, a nighttime Russian drone attack on Ukraine's second-largest city 
of Kharkiv wounded at least 45 civilians, officials said. The United Nations 
reported that the number of Ukrainian civilian casualties in the more than 
three-year war has surged in recent weeks amid Washington's attempts to broker 
a peace agreement.

   Russian President Vladimir Putin backs calls for a ceasefire before peace 
negotiations, "but before it's done, it's necessary to answer a few questions 
and sort out a few nuances," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. Putin also 
is ready for direct talks with Ukraine without preconditions to seek a peace 
deal, he added.

   "We realize that Washington wants to achieve quick progress, but we hope for 
understanding that the Ukrainian crisis settlement is far too complex to be 
done quickly," Peskov said. "There are many details and an array of small 
nuances that need to be solved before a settlement."

   U.S. President Donald Trump has previously expressed frustration over the 
slow pace of progress in negotiations aimed at stopping the war, which he said 
he could end in the first 24 hours of his new administration in January. 
Western European leaders have accused Putin of stalling while his forces seek 
to grab more Ukrainian land. Russia has captured nearly a fifth of Ukraine's 
territory since Moscow's forces launched a full-scale invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

   Trump has chided Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for steps that he 
said were "prolonging" the "killing field," and the U.S. leader has rebuked 
Putin for complicating negotiations with "very bad timing" in launching deadly 
strikes that battered the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.

   Trump has long dismissed the war as a waste of American taxpayer money and 
of lives lost in the conflict. Senior U.S. officials have warned that the 
administration could abandon the peace efforts, if it sees no solution. That 
could spell an end to crucial military help for Ukraine and heavier economic 
sanctions on Russia.

   The U.S. State Department on Tuesday tried again to push both sides to move 
more quickly.

   "We are now at a time where concrete proposals need to be delivered by the 
two parties on how to end this conflict," department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce 
quoted U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio as telling her.

   "How we proceed from here is a decision that belongs now to the president," 
she told reporters, relating a conversation that she had with Rubio. "If there 
is not progress, we will step back as mediators in this process."

   Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for an immediate and full 
30-day ceasefire, making it conditional on a halt to Ukraine's mobilization 
effort and Western arms supplies to Kyiv.

   Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov claimed Wednesday that Ukraine had 
accepted an unconditional truce only because it was being pushed back on the 
battlefield, where the bigger Russian forces have the upper hand.

   "In the context of the developments on the ground, along the front line 
where the Kyiv regime is increasingly in retreat, they have made an about-turn 
and started demanding an immediate ceasefire without any preconditions," Lavrov 
said at a briefing in Rio de Janeiro where he was attending a ministerial 
meeting of the BRICS grouping.

   He also suggested that Ukraine's ceasefire promises weren't credible. Both 
sides have accused each other of breaking previous truces. Independent 
verification of the battlefield claims wasn't possible.

   Meanwhile, Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded in attacks every 
day this year, according to a U.N. report presented Tuesday in New York.

   The U.N. Human Rights Office said in the report that in the first three 
months of this year, it had verified 2,641 civilian casualties in Ukraine. That 
was almost 900 more than during the same period last year.

   Also, between April 1-24, civilian casualties in Ukraine were up 46% from 
the same weeks in 2024, it said.

   The Ukrainian air force said that Russia fired 108 Shahed and decoy drones 
at Ukraine between Tuesday and Wednesday, predominantly at the cities of Dnipro 
and Kharkiv.

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   Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at 
https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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