MOSCOW, December 22. /TASS/. Ukraine is losing ground amid weakening Western support, and Russian President Vladimir Putin’s remarks covered more than 70 topics during his Q&A session. Meanwhile, Israel has sounded the alarm about nuclear rebuilding in Iran. These stories topped Monday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Russian special presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev described last weekend’s talks in Miami with US negotiators as constructive. The latest meeting was aimed at gaining insights into the outcome of recent consultations between the Americans and the Europeans. Meanwhile, Washington is doing its best to persuade Kiev to sign a peace deal, experts interviewed by Izvestia believe. The United States has already halted direct funding, and the EU failed to coordinate a reparations loan for Kiev using frozen Russian assets at a recent summit.
Even as the Americans are accelerating the negotiation process, Bogdan Bezpalko, a member of the Russian Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations, argued that one should not expect any major concessions from Kiev - at least as long as it receives some support from Europe. EU leaders gathered in Brussels on December 18-19 to try to coordinate a reparations loan for Ukraine using Russia’s immobilized assets. However, they failed to do so and only agreed to provide 90 billion euros to Kiev, a sum that would hardly be enough to cover the budget deficit over the next two years or buy weapons on a large scale.
