Russia welcomed recent comments by the United States indicating that Ukraine's possible membership in NATO is no longer on the agenda, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday.
We have received words at different levels from Washington affirming that membership of Ukraine in NATO is excluded. This pleases us and it corresponds to our stance," Peskov was cited as saying by Russian state-run news agency TASS.
Last week, US President Donald Trump told reporters that much as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky might desire Ukraine to join NATO, this was something that would never materialize. Trump further hypothesized that Ukraine's quest for NATO membership could have been one of the contributing factors towards the war.
Trump went on to say that he hoped that a resolution of the crisis in Ukraine could be found in the near term. "Hopefully, Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week. Both will then begin to do big business with the United States of America," Trump wrote on his Truth Social site.
In a parallel development, Russian leader Vladimir Putin appealed for an Easter truce, meeting with the Russian Armed Forces' Chief of the General Staff, Valery Gerasimov, on Saturday. The 30-hour ceasefire was to start at 6:00 p.m. local time on April 19 and end at midnight on April 21.
The Russian Defence Ministry on Monday confirmed that Russian forces strictly followed the ceasefire throughout the Easter ceasefire, holding their positions as instructed. "According to the instruction of the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces, all battlegroups strictly adhered to the ceasefire and did not leave their positions in the special military operation area during the period specified," the Ministry reported.
In spite of the ceasefire, Ukrainian troops allegedly maintained artillery bombardment and drone attacks on Russian positions and civilian targets in the Belgorod, Bryansk, and Kursk regions, as well as in the Republic of Crimea. The Russian Ministry of Defence reported that a total of 4,900 ceasefire breaches by Ukrainian troops were documented during the truce.
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