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lousubcap

Saturday Russia-Ukraine update:

"In his annual “results of the year” speech in Moscow on Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for refusing to discuss giving up the Ukrainian Russia has seized, as part of truce negotiations.

“We know from statements from Zelenskyy that he’s not prepared to discuss territory issues,” Putin said.

The Russian president also attacked Europe’s handling of frozen Russian assets, labelling plans to use them to fund Ukraine as “robbery”, rather than theft, because it was being done openly.  “Whatever they stole, they’ll have to give it back someday,” Putin said, pledging to pursue legal action in courts that he described as “independent of political decisions”.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that progress has been made to end Russia’s war on Ukraine in a year-end address in Washington, DC.

“I think we’ve made progress, but we have a ways to go, and obviously, the hardest issues are always the last issues,” Rubio told reporters.  “We don’t see surrender any time in the near future, and only a negotiated settlement can end this war,” Rubio said, adding that any decision about ending the war will be up to Ukraine and Russia, and not the US.

Top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov, who is in the US for ceasefire discussions, said the US and Kyiv had agreed to continue their joint efforts to reach a ceasefire."