FILE PHOTO: Servicemen of the 44th Separate Artillery Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine fire a 155-mm FH70 howitzer towards Russian troops at a frontline, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Zaporizhzhia region, Ukraine February 21, 2025. REUTERS/Stringer/File photo
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia said on Thursday that a French and British peace initiative on Ukraine was a bid to buy time for Kyiv and prevent its military collapse.
"In reality, we are dealing with an open desire to achieve a respite at any cost for the Kyiv regime in its death throes, for the Ukrainian Armed Forces, and to prevent the collapse of the front," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.
She told reporters that Moscow was interested in a definitive settlement to end the war, not a pause that she said would help Ukraine.
"Firm agreements on a final settlement are necessary. Without all this, any respite or regrouping is absolutely unacceptable, as it will lead to exactly the opposite result," she said.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said at the weekend that London and Paris would work on a peace deal with Ukraine and present it to U.S. President Donald Trump. French President Emmanuel Macron said the two countries were proposing a partial one-month truce between Russia and Ukraine.
France and Britain have also said they would be willing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine in the event of a settlement. Moscow has repeatedly and emphatically rejected the idea that troops from NATO countries could play such a role.
(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov, Writing by Mark Trevelyan; Editing by Alison Williams)
