President Vladimir Putin, background center left, speaks to U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff, center foreground, back to a camera, and Jared Kushner, right, as Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov, second left, and Presidential Envoy Kirill Dmitriev attend the talks at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin in Moscow, on Saturday
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the meeting, which lasted three hours and 10 minutes, was substantive, constructive and extremely frank and took place in a trusting atmosphere, according to Russia’s TASS news agency. The US envoys were due to travel to Kyiv on Sunday for talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s three-hour meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow ended without any reported breakthrough on a Ukraine peace deal, even as the Kremlin described the talks as “highly useful” and said discussions would continue. The US envoys “outlined a number of ideas regarding possible avenues for a settlement”, Ushakov said. Ushakov said Putin presented Moscow’s assessment of the war and stressed Russia’s battlefield gains. “In particular, note was taken of the real advances made by the Russian army within the combat zone; confidence was expressed in achieving the stated objectives, and the need to eliminate all root causes of the conflict was emphasised,” he said, according to ANI. The Kremlin has repeatedly said any settlement must address what it calls the “root causes” of the conflict. Ushakov said they would convey Putin’s observations on prospects for a “durable peaceful settlement”, while Moscow and Washington would maintain further contact through the envoys.
He did not disclose the details of those proposals, leaving unclear whether they addressed the most contentious issues between Moscow and Kyiv, including territory and the future security arrangements for Ukraine.