Kremlin says Russian officials ready for second round of peace talks

Russian officials say that they are prepared to hold a second round of talks with Ukraine after the first round of talks ended without any breakthroughs. 

“First we can try to predict whether Ukrainian negotiators will show up or not. Let’s hope this happens. Our (negotiators) will be there and ready,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, according to Reuters.

Peskov noted there was contradictory information about the talks after a Monday meeting along the Ukraine-Belarus border. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday that peace talks could not happen until Russia stopped bombing Ukrainian cities. 

Peskov also said that Moscow needed to develop a harsh and clear response to sanctions imposed on Russia by Western nations. 

The spokesman noted that “Russia’s economy is experiencing serious blows” as a result of the sanctions from the West, but added that “there is a certain margin of safety, there is potential, there are some plans, work is underway.”

The U.S. along with its allies have imposed sanctions against Russia including kicking certain Russian banks out of SWIFT, an important messaging system for international transactions, and closing U.S., EU and Canadian airspace to Russian flights. 

The U.S. has also promised to impose measures to prevent the Russian Central Bank from undermining sanctions and bolstering the ruble by using its reserves.

During his State of the Union address on Tuesday, President Biden asserted that the sanctions in place against Russia thus far contributed to a 30 percent loss in the value of the ruble and to the Russian stock market losing 40 percent of its value in less than a week.