While some progress has been made with the US brokering a peace deal between Moscow and Kyiv, contact with Washington, however, has been difficult, Russia says.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says Russia remains open to dialogue with the White House.

Russian president Vladimir Putin has repeatedly stressed that he wants Ukraine to drop its Nato ambitions.

Putin also demanded that Ukraine permanently cede to Russia the four regions it has lost and limit the size of its army.

However, Kyiv responded that those demands are equivalent to demanding its capitulation.

US president Donald Trump has threatened to abandon the peace deal Washington is brokering with Russia and Ukraine if it is not done “quickly”.

“Quickly, we want to get it done,” Trump told reporters at the White House on Friday.

“Now, if for some reason one of the two parties makes it very difficult, we’re just going to say, ‘you’re foolish, you’re fools, you’re horrible people, and we’re going to just take a pass. But hopefully we won’t have to do that,” the US president said.

Trump’s comments come a day after US secretary of state Marco Rubio warned that the White House would not endeavour “for weeks and months on end” to broker a peace deal.

“If it’s not possible, if we’re so far apart that this is not going to happen, then I think the president is probably at a point where he’s going to say, ‘well, we’re done’,” Rubio said.

Russia’s former president Dmitry Medvedev expressed his approval for the US threat to pull out of peace negotiations.

“American officials have said that if there is no progress on the Ukrainian case, the United States will wash its hands of it. Wisely,” Mr Medvedev, now deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, said in a post on X.

“And the EU should do the same. Then Russia will figure it out faster,” he said.

Russia and Ukraine will conduct a new prisoner swap today, mediated by the United Arab Emirates, Reuters reported.

Nearly 500 Russian and Ukrainian prisoners and 46 injured soldiers are expected to be exchanged in the latest swap.

The exchange, involving 246 prisoners from each side, would make it one of the largest prisoner swaps to date.

This comes after the two sides exchanged 175 prisoners in March.