The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, has once again humiliated the White House special envoy, Steve Witkoff, with another endless wait, when they were going to discuss this Tuesday in Moscow the new plan of the American president, Donald Trump, to end the . The American businessman carries with him the draft that the authorities in Washington and kyiv agreed upon in Geneva last week. This plan was an improvement on the original 28-point American proposal that met many of the Kremlin’s demands and left Ukraine on the brink of capitulation. Moscow, however, claims even more territory: Putin has ordered his high command to create a “security zone” along the entire border with Ukraine.
The Kremlin had announced that the meeting would start at 5:00 p.m. in Moscow, 3:00 p.m. in mainland Spain, but after several minutes the Russian leader appeared at the forum Russia is calling! from BTV bank. It is unknown when the president will receive Trump’s envoy.
This is the second time that Putin has made Witkoff wait in this way: the previous one, in March, when the American businessman traveled to Moscow to discuss with the Russian leader a 30-day ceasefire that never took place. On that occasion, Putin improvised a meeting with the Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, that same day. The American envoy then had to wait eight hours.
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, is the big absentee from the important meeting this Tuesday. , has traveled to Moscow for the sixth time this year accompanied by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the American president. Without any experience as a diplomat – in an interview he has even forgotten the name of the Ukrainian regions for which he negotiates – kyiv accuses Witkoff of buying Putin’s Russian narrative.
This businessman has proven to be more tractable to the Kremlin than Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. This veteran diplomat, familiar with Eastern Europe, was vetoed by Moscow in his negotiations and has announced his departure in January 2026.
Witkoff, however, in the negotiations, according to the leak of his conversations with Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev. From those conversations emerged the first draft of Trump’s peace plan, a 28-point document that effectively involved the capitulation of Ukraine.
The Kremlin wants more territory
On the eve of his meeting with Witkoff, Putin has staged the supposed conquest of Pokrovsk, a city in the Donetsk region that the Kremlin has been trying to take since February 2024 at the cost of countless casualties. However, Ukraine has denied its fall and claims that it controls the northern part of the city, from where it attacks Russian forces in the southern area.
A video released by the Kremlin this Monday showed the Russian leader dressed as a military man along with the chief of his General Staff, Valeri Gerasimov, in a supposed command center. During the meeting, the general announced to his leader “the liberation of Krasnoarmiisk [el nombre soviético de Pokrovsk] and Vovchansk.” Likewise, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a short recording in which two soldiers posed running with their flag in the center of a devastated city.
Putin ordered Gerasimov to create “a security zone along the border with Ukraine” during their meeting. This instruction, which is not new, would imply advancing in all Ukrainian provinces that border both the Russian Federation – specifically the regions of Kharkiv, Sumi and Chernigov – and its occupied territories with the excuse of keeping Ukrainian forces away.
The mere proposal of this “security zone” contradicts the supposed Russian intention of limiting itself to asking for international recognition of its occupation of Donetsk, Lugansk and Crimea, and raises another question: how far would Putin advance this “security zone” if he considers each new territory he conquers his own.
Political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the Rpolitik analysis center, warns on her Telegram channel: “Listening to this, it comes to mind how far all negotiators (non-Russian, of course) are from understanding all of the Kremlin’s demands. What is being negotiated now and perceived as maximalist demands is just the tip of the iceberg.”
