Britain and France yesterday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in ceasefire talks aimed at halting his country’s invasion of Ukraine and demanded a swift response from Moscow after weeks of US efforts to secure a truce.
A Russian drone attack late on Thursday on Kharkiv killed five civilians and dramatized the diplomatic insistence on a ceasefire.
Emergency crews carried black body bags from a burning apartment building as onlookers wept and hugged in the dark.
Photo: AFP
Some of the 32 injured people, bloodied and in shock, limped out into the street or were carried on stretchers as flames shot from the windows of their homes.
“Now, I think it is obvious who wants peace and who wants war,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said at a NATO meeting in Brussels, referring to the Kharkiv strike. “We must get Russia serious about peace. We must pressure Russia into peace.”
Russia has effectively rejected a US proposal for a full and immediate 30-day halt in the fighting.
A Kremlin official on Monday said that Moscow views efforts to end the war with Ukraine as “a drawn-out process.”
“Our judgment is that Putin continues to obfuscate, continues to drag his feet,” British Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs David Lammy told reporters at NATO headquarters, standing alongside French Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs Jean-Noel Barrot.
Lammy said that while Putin should be accepting a ceasefire, “he continues to bombard Ukraine. It’s civilian population. It’s energy supplies. We see you, Vladimir Putin. We know what you are doing.”
Barrot said that Ukraine accepted ceasefire terms three weeks ago and that Russia “owes an answer to the United States.”
“Russia has been flip-flopping, continuing its strikes on energy infrastructure, continuing its war crimes,” Barrot said. “It has to be ‘yes.’ It has to be ‘no.’ It has to be a quick answer.”
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