Victoria Nuland, the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, believes that a possible condition for easing some of the sanctions implemented against Russia is the withdrawal of troops from all of Ukraine and an agreement to negotiate seriously.

Source: Nuland during the hearing on countering Russian aggression in the Senate on Thursday, reports European Pravda

"In the context of Russia's decision to negotiate seriously and withdraw its troops from Ukraine and return territories, I would certainly support that (easing of sanctions). I think the US Secretary of State, Blinken, would do the same," she said.

Nuland was replying to the question from Senator Rand Paul (European Pravda wrote about him in more detail here), who proposed that the USA and Russia conclude an agreement on the mutual lifting of sanctions against Russian and American lawmakers.

Paul argued that the sanctions against Russian MPs are imposed because they have "certain beliefs" (about supporting the annexation of Ukrainian territories and aggressive war), and this makes it difficult to carry out dialogue and "legislative exchange".

"I would say that if the United States is not interested in having conversations with the Russians, we should carefully look at what can be done to facilitate this," the senator believes.

It should be noted that the United States still indicates that Russia is not abandoning its intentions to capture all of Ukraine and is not serious about negotiations or any other steps towards de-escalation.

At the end of December 2022, President Joe Biden expressed his belief that the war between Ukraine and Russia would not end without negotiating with Putin.

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