‘Pressure is beginning to have some effect’: Deputy Secretary of State says Russia is showing signs of interest in Ukraine talks
- ‘That pressure is beginning to have some effect. We are seeing some signs to have real, serious negotiations,’ Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said
- ‘But I have to say … so far it appears Vladimir Putin is intent on destroying Ukraine,’ Sherman added
- Sherman’s comments come on the heels of news that American freelance filmmaker Brent Renaud has been shot dead while covering the war
- Renaud, 51, was in a car with other journalists in Irpin, near Kyiv, when Russian troops opened fire. He was shot dead and one of his colleagues was injured
Russia is showing signs of a willingness to engage in substantive negotiations over Ukraine, even as Moscow currently is intent on ‘destroying’ its neighbor, US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Sunday,
Sherman, in an interview with Fox News Sunday, said the US is putting ‘enormous pressure’ on Russian President Vladimir Putin to agree to a cease-fire in its weeks-old invasion of Ukraine and to allow the creation of humanitarian corridors to allow civilians to escape.
‘That pressure is beginning to have some effect. We are seeing some signs to have real, serious negotiations. But I have to say … so far it appears Vladimir Putin is intent on destroying Ukraine,’ Sherman said.
Sherman’s comments come on the heels of news that American freelance filmmaker Brent Renaud has been shot dead while covering the war.
Renaud, 51, was in a car with other journalists in Irpin, near Kyiv, when Russian troops opened fire. He was shot dead and one of his colleagues was injured, police said Sunday.
Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said on Sunday Russia is showing signs of interest in Ukraine talks
Following a Russian attack on a military base near Poland’s border where NATO defenses are deployed, Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby said he did not believe a NATO-imposed no-fly zone over Ukraine would have prevented that.
And he said that while a no-fly zone has a ‘nice air policing sound,’ such a move by NATO would hurl the United States into war with Russia.
‘There is very little that you can see that would make sense for this war to be escalated between two nuclear powers,’ Kirby told ABC’s ‘This Week.’
‘There are two objectives we have. One is to support Ukraine in every way and indeed since the Biden administration began we’ve put $1.2 billion forward in security assistance to help Ukraine defend itself against this horrible attack,’ Sherman said on Sunday.
‘And the second it’s to try to put enormous pressure on Vladimir Putin to change his calculus, to end this war, to get cease-fire in the fist instance, to get humanitarian carters and to end this invasion,’ she added.
When asked why the US government hadn’t sent MIG-29 jets for Ukraine to use in the battlefield, Sherman said The Pentagon had assessed it was not a reliable option.
‘If I were President Zelensky I’d want everything and anything I could possibly get, I understand this, The Pentagon however made an assessment…that what Ukrainians really need are anti-craft anti-tank -anti-armor which is what we are supplying them in great measure,’ Sherman said.
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