Since the opening of Trump’s Operation Epic Fury and America’s escalating war in Iran, now soon to reach three weeks, Moscow and Kiev have several times confirmed there’s been a pause in peace talks. The last instance the three parties met was in February in Geneva, soon before the Iran conflict began. Days into US-Israeli Iran operations, a new round scheduled for March 5 in Abu Dhabi was postponed. This as Iranian ‘retaliatory’ strikes began to rain down on the Gulf. On Thursday, one regional journalist has stated based on a fresh update from Putin’s office: “Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov makes it official: trilateral peace talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the USA are suspended (apparently indefinitely) thanks to the Iran War. I suspect Moscow and Kyiv are secretly relieved to be done with the charade.” Indeed just moments before, Peskov announced that the work of the trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine group on security issues is effectively on permanent pause. At the same time, he did clarify that work on organizing prisoner exchanges between Russia and Ukraine continues, per that statement in Kommersant. Also, the Kremlin has sought to make clear that Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev continues to engage with the American side on economic issues, […]