Russian president Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that his meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had been “very useful”, and that it had been based on the proposals discussed with US president Donald Trump in Alaska.
Mr Trump, meanwhile, said the path ahead for Ukraine peace talks was unclear after what he called “reasonably good” talks in Moscow which nonetheless failed to achieve a breakthrough
After their hours-long meeting at the Kremlin on Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were set to meet top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Mr Trump said Mr Putin would like to make a deal, but “what comes out of that meeting I can’t tell you because it does take two to tango.” The president added that the US had “something pretty well worked out [with Ukraine].”
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The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Mr Putin accepted some US proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine and was prepared to keep working to find a compromise, but that “compromises have not yet been found”.
Both sides agreed not to disclose the substance of their discussion at the Kremlin, but at least one big hurdle to a settlement remains; the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia partially occupies.
A Russian official told reporters that “so far, a compromise hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which the Kremlin sees “no resolution to the crisis”.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has captured and on Wednesday said his team was preparing for meetings in the United States, adding that dialogue with Trump’s representatives will continue.
“Only by taking Ukraine’s interests into account is a dignified peace possible,” he said.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, took a stronger line, urging Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”
The negotiations have intensified at a difficult juncture for Kyiv, which has been losing ground to Russia on its eastern front while facing its biggest corruption scandal of the war.
Mr Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, who had led the Ukrainian delegation at peace talks, resigned on Friday after anti-corruption investigators searched his home.
Meanwhile Russia’s advance in eastern Ukraine has gathered pace and Putin has said that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims if Kyiv does not surrender it.
“The progress and nature of the negotiations were influenced by the successes of the Russian army on the battlefield in recent weeks,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in the US-Russia talks, told reporters.
In November, a leaked draft of a US peace proposal emerged, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said that it was weighted too much in Moscow’s. The proposal would have seen Ukraine cede territory to Russia, Russia readmitted to the G8 and Ukraine banned from joining Nato.
European countries then came up with a counterproposal, and at talks in Geneva, the US and Ukraine said they had created an updated and refined peace framework to end the war.
Mr Putin on Tuesday accused European powers of trying to sink the peace talks by proposing ideas which were absolutely unacceptable to Moscow, while also issuing threats that Russia was ready for war with Europe if it started one.
Ukraine and its European allies have in turn accused Putin of feigning interest in peace efforts, with UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper saying on Wednesday that Russia should “end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace”.
“What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said at a meeting of European Nato foreign ministers. “It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”
Nato secretary general Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners will keep supplying military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.
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On Wednesday the European Commission also announced it would move ahead with controversial plans to fund Ukraine with a €90 billion loan based on Russia’s frozen assets. In a concession to concerns raised by Belgium, which hosts most of the assets, the EU executive has also proposed the option of an EU loan based on common borrowing.
EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later this month, as Ukraine faces a looming funding crunch.
Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy chairman of Russia’s security council, said on Thursday that if the European Union takes frozen Russian assets, then it may be considered by Moscow as tantamount to an act justifying war.
“If the crazy European Union does, after all, try to steal Russian assets frozen in Belgium under the guise of a so-called ‘reparations loan’, Russia may well view this move as tantamount to a casus belli with all the relevant implications for Brussels and individual EU countries,” Mr Medvedev said.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, the UN general assembly called for the immediate and unconditional return of Ukrainian children “forcibly transferred” to Russia. Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting at least 20,000 Ukrainian children since the start of the conflict in February 2022.
The assembly adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of 91-12, with 57 abstentions. Russia was among the countries rejecting the measure. – Guardian, Reuters and AP
