This is the chronicle of a failure foretold. It sounds cliché, but it is to be expected when it is the one involved. Yesterday, the Russian president held a five-hour meeting with the special envoys of his counterpart from the United States until late at night. The idea was to debate the American peace plan for Ukraine, the country that he himself ordered to occupy almost four years ago. But the Kremlin’s maximalist positions, immovable, have prevented any agreement. From Moscow, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, only bring .
Russia has made it clear this morning that there is no agreement. Trump has repeatedly complained that ending Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II has been one of the most elusive foreign policy goals of his presidency. I wanted to end the whole 24 hours, but there was no way. Now he is really discovering the biggest obstacle: that Putin understands that they are winning on the ground, that he is moving forward, albeit slowly, that he believes that he can claim complete victory one day and that, for that reason, he is not going to give in. : Ukrainian territory, decaffeinated army, NATO only in dreams and control, all control.
After midnight, at the end of yesterday’s meeting, Putin’s main foreign policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, declared: “No agreements have been reached yet. There is still a lot of work to do.” He said this at a briefing in the Kremlin. Putin reacted negatively to some American proposals, Ushakov said. Witkoff, with nothing in his hands, left at that time to the US embassy in Moscow to inform the White House, the spokesman added.
“No agreements have been reached yet. There is still a lot of work to do”
Yuri Ushakov
Ushakov added that a face-to-face meeting between Putin and Trump (US) had not been planned, although he said the talks were “constructive and substantial” and that there were enormous opportunities for economic cooperation between the US and Russia. That is not peace in Ukraine. Those are private businesses of Putin and Trump. “On some (points) we could agree and the president told his interlocutors as much. Others provoked our criticism. And the president did not hide his critical and even negative opinion regarding several proposals,” he said.
Ushakov emphasized that Putin had sent a series of important signals and greetings to Trump, but that the parties had agreed not to reveal details to the media. He added that they had discussed the “territorial problem,” which is what the Kremlin calls its claims, especially in the ; Although Ukraine still controls at least 5,000 square kilometers of the area, Russia claims it as its own, 100%. Almost all countries recognize Donbas as part of Ukraine, legitimate and sovereign. Russia, in turn, demands that Ukraine renounce membership in NATO, reduces the security guarantees that the West can give to kyiv and refuses to commit to Russian reparations in the postwar period. None of that could be agreed upon tonight.
Are we further from peace? No, not that. “Some preliminary American proposals seem more or less acceptable, but they need to be discussed,” Ushakov said. “Some of the formulations that have been proposed to us do not suit us; that is, the work will continue,” he concluded.
Witkoff, who has never worked in foreign policy but is an American who has known Trump since the 1980s, and Kushner, husband of the Republican’s daughter Ivanka, began talks in the Kremlin after a symbolic walk through Red Square, past the mausoleum of Soviet founder Vladimir Lenin, to the Kremlin towers. Then, they spoke with Putin at one of those huge tables in the palace, but face to face, at a short distance. With the Russian president were Ushakov and Putin’s envoy, the powerful, through interpreters.
The gracia of Putin was that he made the Americans wait three hours beyond the scheduled time, because he went to an economic forum in the meantime. Quite a declaration of intentions and a humiliation, incidentally.
“Our people are in Russia right now to see if we can solve it. It’s not an easy situation, I have to tell you.” “What a disaster!” Trump said Tuesday in Washington, adding that the war was causing between 25,000 and 30,000 casualties a month. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, triggering the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the height of the Cold War.
For this conflict, the same negotiating team that was forced in September has been sent, but the context is very different: neither the position of weakness of the Palestinians is that of Ukraine, nor is the friendship of the US with Israel that of Russia, neither Europe nor NATO are willing to swallow, with the expansionist threat that Moscow continues to pose.
European concern
What is now on the table is a reform of the 28-point set leaked last month, with the US peace proposals, which alarmed Ukrainian and European officials, because it bowed to Moscow’s main demands. Virtually all of them, in fact, returning to square one, like when Trump and Putin spoke for the first time in February, behind the backs of kyiv and Brussels.
For this reason, the European powers decided to present . In talks in Geneva, Switzerland, last week, the US and Ukraine said they had created an “updated and refined peace framework” to end the war, including the sensitivity of Ukrainians and Europeans. And that, of course, disrupts Putin’s plans, because it lowers his demands, even though it has not emerged in what way the plan has changed. It is only known that the debate points have been lowered.
The president of Ukraine, speaking from Dublin, Ireland, stated that everything would depend on the talks in Moscow, but that he feared that the US would lose interest in the peace process if it stalled. “There will be no easy solutions… It is important that everything is fair and transparent, so that there is no sleight of hand.” “Ukraine is back,” he said.
“There will be no easy solutions… It is important that everything is fair and transparent, so that there is no sleight of hand.” “Ukraine is back”
Volodymyr Zelensky
Just before the Kremlin’s meeting with Witkoff, Putin declared that Russia did not want a war with Europe, but that if Europe started one, it would end so quickly that there would be no one left with whom Russia could negotiate. Very reassuring.
The leader of the Russian Federation threatened, incidentally, to cut off Ukraine’s access to the sea, in response to drone attacks against oil tankers of the so-called Russian shadow fleet in the Black Sea. That fleet is a clandestine network of ships that Putin uses to , mainly from the EU, the US and the United Kingdom, imposed after the Ukrainian invasion. It is made up of hundreds of vessels, many of them old and secretly operated, that transport Russian oil to circumvent the price cap and other controls; Sometimes, they use false identities of ships that have already been scrapped.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Putin’s statements showed he was not ready to end the war.
Threatening
As explained by the , in a demonstration that the Russian leader is prepared to continue fighting in 2026 if his demands are not met, before the meeting he called on the Ministry of Defense to prepare the army for winter. “The Ministry of Defense and the General Staff must think about supplying the troops for the arrival of winter. The men must receive everything they need,” he said.
Putin also announced the capture of the Pokrovsk bastion – the largest Russian victory since the conquest of the port of Mariupol, also in the Donetsk region, in the first months of the war – something that kyiv categorically denied. “It is a good bridgehead to achieve all the objectives set at the beginning of the special military operation,” he predicted.
