The possibility of direct talks between the two sides was raised during a three-hour meeting between the Russian president and US envoy Steve Witkoff last week.
Russia and Ukraine have not held direct negotiations since March 2022, shortly after Putin launched his war.
Later that year, Ukraine’s president adopted a decree that ruled out negotiations with Putin, after Russia claimed four regions of the country as its own territory.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky, right, met with Donald Trump as they attended the funeral of Pope Francis in the Vatican on Saturday
AP
Asked if the signal for direct talks should come from Ukraine or the US, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “Well, from Kyiv, at least Kyiv should take some actions in this regard. They have a legal ban on this. But so far we don’t see any action.”
The two sides are under intense pressure from America to find a settlement to the end the war, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.
The US president urged Russia on Sunday to stop firing missiles into civilian areas in Ukraine and suggested Mr Zelensky was ready to give up Crimea as the price of a peace deal.
Asked if Ukraine’s president might be ready to give up Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula seized by Russia in 2014, as part of a future peace deal with Moscow, Trump said: “Oh, I think so, yeah. Look, Crimea was 12 years ago.”
Such a move would be a major change of stance by Mr Zelensky who has so far steadfastly ruled it out.
US proposals on ending the three-year war in Ukraine have called for Washington’s recognition of Moscow’s control over Crimea as well as de facto recognition of Russia’s hold on other parts of Ukraine.
Trump and Mr Zelensky, in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, met in a Vatican basilica on Saturday to try to revive faltering efforts to end the war in Ukraine.
The US president rebuked Putin after the latest meeting, saying on social media that there is “no reason” for Russia to shoot missiles into civilian areas.
Ukrainian and European officials have pushed back against the US proposals on how to end the war.
Britain’s Defence Secretary John Healey, left, Ukraine’s Defence Minister Rustem Umerov, center and Germany’s Defence Minister Boris Pistorius
AP
German Defence Minister Boris Pistorius said on Sunday that Ukraine should not agree to the American proposal, saying it went too far in ceding swathes of territory in return for a ceasefire.
Chuck Schumer, the top US Senate Democrat, said on Sunday that he is concerned Trump will “cave in to Putin” and warned that abandoning Ukraine would be a “moral tragedy”.
