The Kremlin on Friday denied media reports that CIA Director William Burns visited Moscow to propose a secret peace plan that would require Ukraine to cede territory to Russia, Reuters and TASS reported.

Asked whether Burns had offered Moscow a plan that would require Ukraine to cede 20 percent of its territory, a Kremlin spokesman said: “That’s a bluff.”

Responding to a repeated question about whether Burns came to Moscow in January to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Peskov again noted: “In January? This whole story (about the US plan) is a bluff.”

The Swiss newspaper Neue Zürcher Zeitung, citing sources, reported that US President Joe Biden would task the director of the CIA to clarify whether the Russian Federation and Ukraine are open to negotiations.

According to the Swiss newspaper, the USA offered the Ukrainian side to cede 20% of its territory in exchange for peace, but Moscow and Kyiv did not accept this option.

And the White House qualified this information as baseless. According to Newsweek, with reference to the deputy spokesman of the National Security Council, Sean Devitt, the information published in the Swiss daily “does not correspond to reality.”

For his part, a representative of the CIA, under the protection of anonymity, said that this information is “absolutely false.” (Agerpress)

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