Putin’s longest-serving ally working to stop the war in Ukraine | World | News

One of Putin’s longest and most-trusted aids has admitted in private he believes the Russian President should stop the war in Ukraine, urging peace talks.

Dmitry Kozak, the 72-year-old’s deputy chief of staff, has worked alongside the Russian leader since his first appointment as Prime Minister in 1999 and has helped oversee some of the country’s biggest events since, including the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics.

This week, Putin will meet with his US counterpart Donald Trump in the first face-to-face exchange between the pair for more than six years to discuss bringing an end to the war.

The meeting will take place in Alaska, with the White House weighing up whether or not to invite Ukraine‘s President Volodymyr Zelensky to also make the trip.

Kozak, one of Putin’s longest-surviving allies in the Kremlin, has been one of a small group of advisors and associates to oppose the war, reportedly presenting his President with a plan to end the fighting and proposing internal reforms, according to the New York Times.

The Kremlin’s deputy chief of staff is understood to have warned Putin against beginning his invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, foreseeing the fierce Ukrainian resistance that was to follow, even going as far as trying to negotiate a truce, to no avail.

In the last three-and-a-half years, Kozak has been stripped of his responsibilities in Ukraine, once being considered a key figure in the affairs of the wartorn country before Sergei Kirienko, deputy head of Russia‘s presidential administration, began to oversee its occupied territories on behalf of Russia.

The New York Times report alleges Western officials had told the publication Kozak remains in touch with foreign representatives, without Putin’s knowledge, to collect information which might halt the leader’s war machine.

Vladimir Putin has stated repeatedly that he would not agree to an unconditional ceasefire proposed by the U.S. since Ukraine backed it in March, demanding the eastern European country forgo NATO membership and hand over swathes of land such as the partially-occupied Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson oblasts.

This move seems to be partially backed by Trump, who stated he and Putin will discuss “land swapping” when they meet, adding he was frustrated that Zelesnky insisted on a national referendum for Ukrainians to vote on any proposed peace deal.

“I was a little bothered by the fact that Zelenskyy was saying I have to get constitutional approval,” Trump said. “He has approval to go to war and kill everybody, but he needs approval to do a land swap.

“Because there will be some land swapping going on. I know that through Russia and through conversations with everybody.”

Zelensky made an address in which he opbsereved that Russia is “definitely not preparing for a ceasefire or an end to the war,” as the peacetalk date approaches, also initially stating his reluctance to landswap though recent reports suggest he may be prepared to cede land to end the bloodshed with July being the deadliest month for Ukrainian civilians since Russia began its invasion.

Previously, the Ukrainian leader has warned that granting Putin what he wants will only embolden him and allow Moscow to regroup to attack Europe once more.