By Guy Faulconbridge and Dmitry Antonov
MOSCOW, March 19 (Reuters) - The Kremlin said on Thursday that talks between Washington, Moscow and Kyiv on ending the war in Ukraine were on "situational pause" following the start of the Iran war, but Ukraine's president said new discussions were expected this weekend.
U.S. President Donald Trump vowed to end the Ukraine war on his return to the White House but has said efforts to resolve the conflict have been one of his biggest disappointments.
The Izvestia newspaper said in a front-page story that the Kremlin had confirmed a pause in talks on Ukraine and that war in the Middle East could push Kyiv towards compromise.
"This is a situational pause, for obvious reasons," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about the Izvestia report.
Peskov said that as soon as "our American partners" could pay more attention to Ukrainian affairs, Moscow hoped that the pause could end and that a new round of talks could take place.
In Kyiv, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said it was time to end the pause and Washington had sent signals it was ready to continue negotiations. A Ukrainian negotiating team was already on its way to the U.S. for weekend talks.
"There has been a pause in the talks. It is time to end that, and we will do everything so that the talks can be truly meaningful," Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.
"The Ukrainian team ... is already on the way and we expect a meeting on Saturday in the United States."
It was not immediately clear what form the new talks would take and who would be taking part.
Izvestia said that talks on economic and investment cooperation with the United States, led by presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, would continue.
Ukraine and Russia, which invaded its neighbour in 2022, held talks in Turkey last year and have conducted sessions with U.S. mediation in Abu Dhabi and Geneva this year. They remain far apart on Russia's demand for Ukraine to cede control of the whole of its Donetsk region.
U.S. INTELLIGENCE CHIEF SAYS RUSSIA HAS UPPER HAND
Ukrainian and European leaders say Russia cannot be allowed to achieve its aims after what they cast as an imperial-style land grab and that Moscow could next attack a NATO member state if it wins. Moscow denies this.
U.S. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Wednesday that Russia had "maintained the upper hand in its war against Ukraine."
"U.S.-led negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv are ongoing. Until such an agreement is met, Moscow is likely to continue fighting a war of attrition with the aim of degrading Kyiv’s ability and will to resist," Gabbard said.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has said he is open to discussing peace. He portrays the war as a watershed moment in relations with the West, which he says humiliated Russia after the Soviet Union fell in 1991 by enlarging NATO and encroaching on what he considers Moscow's sphere of influence.
In 2024, Putin said Russia's terms for ending the war were that Kyiv officially abandon its ambition of joining NATO and withdraw entirely from four regions Russia claims as its own. Kyiv has questioned Putin's commitment to ending the war and says it will not cede land that Russia has failed to capture.
(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge; Editing by Timothy Heritage, Ron Popeski and Hugh Lawson)
