Arya News - High-level talks on Ukraine in London collapsed after Secretary of State Rubio and Special Envoy Witkoff pulled out over Kiev`s rejection of a negotiations framework including recognition of Crimea as Russian territory. Sputnik asked a pair of veteran politics and international relations observers what it all means.
In contrast to the US, "the Europeans, in particular Germany, France and the UK, are doing everything they can to continue the conflict rather than bring it toward its end,” says fmr MP Matthew Gordon-Banks, commenting on the months-long dispute between Washington and Brussels which helped push the US to skip the London talks on Ukraine this week.The US also recognizes that Zelensky “has a vested interest in continuing this conflict, because when it’s over, he will be out,” Gordon-Banks emphasized.The latter’s “hectoring behavior” during February’s meeting with Trump and Vice President Vance extinguished whatever goodwill may have existed, the ex-lawmaker believes.Poles Apart“As things stand both sides [Ukraine and US, ed.] are poles apart on so many issues” regarding the conflict “that it is going to be very difficult to get anything sorted,” says associate politics professor Alistair Jones of De Montfort University in the UK.Ultimately, Jones doesn’t expect Trump to just walk away from talks.Speaking to reporters during a visit to India on Wednesday, Vice President Vance said the Trump administration has "issued a very explicit proposal to both the Russians and Ukrainians, and it"s time for them to either say yes or for the US to walk away from this process. We"ve engaged in an extraordinary amount of diplomacy, of on the ground work."