The Kremlin said on Tuesday that Russia was ready to consider a proposal by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for a halt to attacks by both sides on each other's civilian infrastructure.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it was a complex topic that President Vladimir Putin was ready to discuss, stressing that there were no concrete plans at the moment for talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Both sides are said to be under pressure to demonstrate progress towards ending the war in Ukraine, after the US President Donald Trump threatened last week to abandon attempts to get them to reach a deal.
On Monday, Zelensky had said that Ukraine was ready for any form of discussion to bring about an end to attacks on civilian facilities.
“Ukraine maintains its proposal not to strike at the very least civilian targets. And we are expecting a clear response from Moscow. We are ready for any conversation about how to achieve this,”; he said.
When asked for the Kremlin's response, Peskov said the topic needed to be discussed taking into account the experience of the 30-hour Easter ceasefire that Putin declared at the weekend.
The Kremlin spokesman did not specify the connection between the two issues.
Meanwhile, countless times and of repeatedly violating a moratorium brokered by the US last month on attacking energy targets such as power grids and oil refineries.
“Actually, the president explained the complexity of this topic just yesterday, answering journalists' questions. That is, if we talk about civilian infrastructure facilities, we need to clearly differentiate in what situations these facilities can be a military target, and in what situations they cannot,” Peskov said.
He quoted Putin as saying that a civilian facility could become a military target if enemy combatants were meeting there. “Therefore there are nuances here that it makes sense to discuss,” Peskov said.
DAILY POST reports that in the course of the conflict, civilians have been killed in both Ukraine and Russia, though far more on the Ukrainian side.
No fewer than 35 people were killed on April 13 in a Russian missile strike on the Ukrainian city of Sumy, in what Kyiv said was a deliberate attack on civilians. Russia said it had hit a meeting of Ukrainian military officers.
