Dmitri Peskov

According to him, it is not a “new approach”, nor an initiative leading “automatically to peace” but a “new idea” which “could potentially allow to open the door” towards a possible outcome.

Mr. Rubio also assured that he had noted to his counterpart, during this “frank exchange” to Kuala Lumpur, the “disappointment” and the “frustration” of Mr. Trump in the face of “lack of progress” to end the Russian invasion of Ukraine launched in 2022.

After two rounds of direct negotiations between Russians and Ukrainians in Istanbul, the Kremlin continues to reject the idea of ​​a cease-fire. He claims that Ukraine gives him four partially occupied regions and renounces to integrate NATO, unacceptable conditions for kyiv.

On the European side, French president Emmanuel Macron announced on Thursday the decision to strengthen “up to 50,000 men” the Franco-British joint expeditionary force, which must serve as a base for a potential military contingent to guarantee a cease-fire in Ukraine.

Russia is opposed to the deployment of such a force in Ukraine.

On the NATO side, the secretary general of the Alliance, Mark Rutte, said he had spoke with Donald Trump and work “with the Allies to provide Ukraine with the help she needs”.

Putin more confident than ever as to the outcome of the war: “He is not afraid of Trump, and sees Ukraine collapse in a few months”

“Everything has burned”

The Rubio-Lavrov interview took place a few hours after a new Russian air attack against Ukraine, which caused the death of two people and injured 22 others, according to help.

From Rome, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky called his Western allies, as on previous days, to impose new sanctions towards Moscow “faster”.

According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia pulled 415 drones and missiles, of which 382 were intercepted, destroyed or lost.

AFP journalists in kyiv heard for several hours during the night of powerful blasts and given the explosions of projectiles intercepted in the sky by the anti -aircraft defense.

Met close to one of the victims, Nadia Voïtsekhivska, a resident, said that her sister was in shock after managing to escape a fire in her building.

“Thank goodness, everyone survived. But her husband was taken by an ambulance,” she said. “Everything has burned”.

A sign of the recent intensification of the Russian strikes in Ukraine, a UN mission announced Thursday that it had identified a record number of civilian deaths (232) and injured (1,343) for three years alone, in a war which has already made at least tens of thousands of deaths on both sides, including many Ukrainian civilians.

In Russia, two civilians were killed in the Belgorod region and another in that of Koursk by several Ukrainian drone attacks on Thursday, local authorities.

“It is clearly an escalation of terror”: Russia launched 400 drones and 18 missiles during its night attack in Ukraine

Moscow wants “signals”

Despite the absence of significant diplomatic advances, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitri Peskov refuted the idea that peace discussions were at downtime on Thursday.

He assured that Moscow was waiting for “kyiv signals” to agree on a date for a third cycle of bilateral talks, after two not very fruitful meetings in mid-May and early June.

Hostilities will continue as long as Moscow considers it impossible to “achieve its objectives” by the diplomatic path alone, he repeated.

On Monday, US President Donald Trump announced that he wanted to send “more weapons” to kyiv, causing the Kremlin dissatisfaction, and the next day Vladimir Putin of saying “bullshit” on Ukraine.

Mr. Zelensky said Thursday that he was aware of the “concrete dates” to which these new American weapons would be delivered, without specifying them. He said he saw “all the necessary political signals” of Washington for this aid.

The Russian forces, which occupy almost 20% of the Ukrainian territory after more than three years of war, continue to progress on the front. They claimed at the beginning of the week taking a first locality in the Dnipropetrovsk region (Center-East).