Washington sees no signs that Moscow is interested in talks on ending the war in Ukraine, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said.
“There’s always value in diplomacy if the parties in question and in this case Russia, are actually interested in meaningful diplomacy. And what we’ve seen, at least recently, is exactly the contrary,” Blinken told CBS News on December 4, adding that Putin had switched tactics after suffering setbacks on the battlefield.
“He’s been unable to win on the battlefield, so he’s taking, he’s basically turning his ire and his fire on Ukrainian civilians, going after the energy infrastructure, trying to turn off the lights, turn off the heat, turn off the electricity. That’s what’s going on.
“So,unless and until Putin demonstrates that he’s actually interested in meaningful diplomacy, it’s unlikely to go anywhere,” Blinken said on Face The Nation.
In recent weeks, Russia’s military focus has been on striking Ukrainian infrastructure nationwide, pressing an offensive in the Donetsk region city of Bakhmut, and shelling sites in the city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces liberated last month after an eight-month Russian occupation.
On December 1, President Joe Biden indicated he would be willing to talk with Putin if the Russian leader demonstrated that he seriously wanted to end the invasion.
“I’m prepared to speak with Mr. Putin if in fact there is an interest in him deciding that he’s looking for a way to end the war,” Biden said. “He hasn’t done that yet.”
The head of U.S. intelligence said fighting in Russia’s war in Ukraine was running at a “reduced tempo” and suggested Ukrainian forces could have brighter prospects in coming months.
Avril Haines alluded to past allegations by some that Putin’s advisers could be shielding him from bad news — for Russia — about war developments, and said he “is becoming more informed of the challenges that the military faces in Russia.”
“But it’s still not clear to us that he has a full picture of at this stage of just how challenged they are,” Haines, the U.S. director of national intelligence, said on December 3.
The British Ministry of Defense, in its latest intelligence estimate on December 4, pointed to new signs from an independent Russian media outlet that public support in Russia for the military campaign was “falling significantly.”
Meduza said it obtained a recent confidential opinion survey conducted by the Federal Protection Service, which is in charge of guarding the Kremlin and providing security to top government officials.
The survey, commissioned by the Kremlin, found that 55 percent of respondents backed peace talks with Ukraine while 25 percent wanted the war to go on. The report didn’t mention the margin of error.