The CIA director, Bill Burns, met his Russian counterpart in Ankara on Monday in a rare high-level meeting, but the US insists it is not engaged in secret peace talks with Moscow without Ukrainian officials being present.
The meeting in the Turkish capital with the head of Russia’s SVR foreign intelligence service, Sergei Naryshkin, followed speculation that some senior US figures would like Ukraine to enter negotiations with the Kremlin to end the war.
US officials said the main purpose of the encounter was to convey “a message on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons by Russia” and to discuss the cases of Americans held in detention in the country.
They emphasised that Burns was “not conducting negotiations of any kind” and “not discussing settlement of the war in Ukraine” – after a leak from the Kremlin in the aftermath of Ukraine’s recapture of Kherson.
The Russian newspaper Kommersant first reported that a meeting was taking place between the US and Russia in Ankara, and said Naryshkin would be present. The newspaper said it did not know the purpose of the discussion.
The Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said he could neither confirm nor deny reports, before the US confirmed that Burns, the person normally used by Joe Biden for backchannel discussions, would be present at the meeting.
There have been no publicly acknowledged meetings between US and Russian leaders since before the invasion, although there have been some direct phone conversations. The last face-to-face was when Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, met Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, in Geneva on 21 January.
Last week speculation emerged that some senior White House advisers would prefer to see an end to the fighting. Gen Mark Milley, the US’s top military officer, said he believed Ukraine had fought the Russian military to a standstill and there were “possibilities here for some diplomatic solutions”.
But the US agreed to send a further $400m (£340m) of military aid to Ukraine, taking the total to $18.9bn since January 2021 – and Biden insisted at the G20 summit there were no secret negotiations going on.
“I’ve been very clear that we’re going to continue to provide the capability for the Ukrainian people to defend themselves. And we are not going to engage in any negotiation. There’s nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. This is a decision Ukraine has to make,” the president said.
Biden was speaking after he met China’s president, Xi Jinping, in Bali, Indonesia. Afterwards, Biden said he and Xi “reaffirmed our shared belief in the threat or the use of nuclear weapons is totally unacceptable” – reinforcing what the US said was Burns’s key message.
In its readout of the meeting, Beijing said “China is highly concerned with the current situation in Ukraine” but made no reference to the nuclear issue. A “confrontation between major powers must be avoided”, Beijing added.
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, is not attending the G20, but Moscow is represented by Lavrov. The Associated Press, citing Indonesian officials, reported that Lavrov was taken to hospital where he was briefly treated for a heart condition.
Russia’s foreign ministry denounced the reports as “the height of fakery”, as the spokesperson Maria Zakharova posted a video of Lavrov sitting outdoors on a patio, dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, reading documents. The minister said speculation about senior Kremlin officials’ health was “not new in politics”.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, on Monday made a surprise visit to the southern city of Kherson to celebrate its recapture after eight months of Russian occupation. “We are moving forward. We are ready for peace, peace for all our country,” he said.
Zelenskiy said it was important to visit Kherson to show residents his support and to demonstrate that “we are really returning, we really raise our flag”. He said: “I’m really happy, you can tell by the reaction of the people, their reaction is not staged.”
He sang the national anthem as the Ukrainian flag was raised over the city. Asked where Ukrainian forces might advance next, he said: “Not Moscow … we’re not interested in the territories of another country.”
Minutes before Zelenskiy arrived, nearby shelling could be heard in the centre of Kherson and blasts of artillery gunfire echoed over the city. Heavy fighting continues across the region, as Ukrainian troops are likely to attempt consolidating control of the western bank in the coming days.
After two nights of jubilation following the liberation of their city, on Sunday Kherson residents began to assess the extent of the damage wreaked by the Russian occupation, with many homes still without electricity and water.
On Sunday, Zelenskiy accused Russian soldiers of war crimes and of killing civilians in Kherson.
“Investigators have already documented more than 400 Russian war crimes. Bodies of dead civilians and servicemen have been found. The Russian army left behind the same savagery it did in other regions of the country it entered,” he said.
Thousands of mines, tripwires and unexploded shells have been left by the troops. The retreating Russians comprehensively destroyed all critical infrastructure including communications, electricity, water, heat, a 100-metre-tall TV tower and at least four bridges.
In New York, the UN General Assembly approved a resolution calling for Russia to be held accountable for violating international law and made to pay reparations for widespread damage and loss of life in Ukraine.
