Kremlin says U.S. position ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine gives satisfaction

MOSCOW (Reuters) -The Kremlin said on Monday that the position of U.S. President Donald Trump's administration on ruling out NATO membership for Ukraine gave Moscow satisfaction, but declined to comment on Trump's hopes for deal this week.

U.S. envoy General Keith Kellogg said on Sunday that NATO membership was "off the table" for Ukraine. Trump has repeatedly said previous U.S. support for Ukraine's bid to join NATO was a cause of the war.

"We have heard from Washington at various levels that Ukraine's membership in NATO is excluded," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters." Of course, this is something that causes our satisfaction and coincides with our position."

Peskov said that Ukrainian membership of the U.S.-led alliance would "pose a threat to the national interests of the Russian Federation. And, in fact, this is one of the root causes of this conflict."

Putin has repeatedly said that Russia would be willing to end the war if Ukraine officially dropped its NATO ambitions and withdraw its troops from the entirety of the territory of four Ukrainian regions claimed and mostly controlled by Russia.

Reuters reported in November that Putin was ready to negotiate a deal with Trump, but would refuse to make major territorial concessions and would insist Kyiv abandon ambitions to join NATO.

Trump said on Sunday he hopes Russia and Ukraine will make a deal this week to end the conflict in Ukraine.

Asked about those remarks, Peskov said: "I don't want to make any comments right now, especially about the time frame."

"President Putin and the Russian side remain open to seeking a peaceful settlement. We are continuing to work with the American side and, of course, we hope that this work will yield results," Peskov said.

He refused to comment directly on a Bloomberg report that the United States is prepared to recognise Russian control of Crimea as part of a broader peace agreement.

"Work on finding a peaceful settlement cannot take place, and should not take place, in public," Peskov said. "It should take place in an absolutely discrete mode."

(Reporting by Dmitry Antonov; Writing by Gleb Stolyarov; Editing by Guy Faulconbridge)