The new round of talks between Russia and the United States to settle the Ukraine will not be held at the ministerial level. This was announced at a regular briefing for journalists by the head of the State Department's press service, Tammy Bruce.
“These will be senior officials. That's all I can tell you. Not people at the ministerial level. These will be senior officials discussing the technical framework of a possible ceasefire agreement in Ukraine“, she said.
“It will be in the coming days“, Bruce said. At the same time, she claims that the details can be expected to be worked out in the very near future.
"President Trump asked for this to happen quickly. And I think we will see the results of this very soon", said the official representative of the foreign policy department.
She found it difficult to explain whether similar contacts are possible in a trilateral format - with the participation of not only Russia and the United States, but also Ukraine. "This is probably still being discussed, organized. Therefore, I cannot talk about the specifics of the agreements. But it will be enough for us to work technically with what was agreed in the telephone conversation between Presidents Trump and Putin. There will be people there who will be able to do this," Bruce noted.
As the special envoy of the American leader, Steve Witkoff, stated in an interview with Fox News on March 18, new contacts between Russia and the United States will take place "on March 23 in Jeddah".
The Secretary of the Russian Security Council, Sergei Shoigu, warned of the difficulties that exist in Kiev in reaching peace agreements.
"What difficulties does Ukraine have? Ukraine's main difficulty is the constitution. Their constitution prohibits any negotiations on changes in territorial integrity," Shoigu said in a conversation with journalists. As another problem, he pointed to the "legitimacy of power" in Ukraine, since it is necessary to determine with whom one can negotiate. The Secretary of the Security Council of the Russian Federation recalled the existence of the “ban on Vladimir Zelensky conducting negotiations alone“.
According to Shoigu, all these problems must be resolved in order to reach agreements.