{"id":171424,"date":"2025-12-02T18:04:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/171424\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T18:04:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T18:04:09","slug":"putin-says-russia-ready-to-fight-europe-right-now-as-us-envoys-meet-president-for-talks-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/171424\/","title":{"rendered":"Putin says Russia ready to fight Europe \u2018right now\u2019 as US envoys meet president for talks \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Russian<\/a> president Vladimir Putin<\/a> has met White House envoys in the Kremlin to discuss a US push to end the war in Ukraine<\/a>, after warning that his country was ready to fight Europe \u201cright now\u201d if necessary and accusing it of blocking peace efforts.<\/p>\n

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, US<\/a> president Donald Trump<\/a>\u2019s son-in-law, began talks with Mr Putin on Tuesday evening to discover Russia\u2019s position on proposals for a framework peace plan that US and Ukrainian officials discussed last weekend in Miami.<\/p>\n

Shortly before the US envoys arrived at the Kremlin, Mr Putin made clear that Moscow rejected European efforts to make an initial 28-point US proposal \u2013 which Ukraine and many European capitals saw as little more than a list of Russia\u2019s maximalist demands \u2013 more amenable to Kyiv.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when they try to make some changes to Trump\u2019s proposals, we see clearly that all these changes are aimed at only one thing \u2013 blocking the entire peace process, putting forward demands that are absolutely unacceptable for Russia … They have no peace agenda \u2013 they are on the side of war,\u201d Mr Putin said.<\/p>\n

The European counterproposals to the original US plan removed key Russian demands on the permanent occupation of swathes of Ukrainian territory, a ban on Ukraine ever joining Nato and limits on the size of Kyiv\u2019s military. It also set aside several points concerning future relations between Russia and Nato.<\/p>\n

\"Russia'sRussia’s president Vladimir Putin (centre-right), accompanied by Kremlin economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev and Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, meets with US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin in Moscow. Photograph: Kristina Kormilitsyna\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

\u201cThe Europeans won\u2019t keep quiet. They are offended that they\u2019ve been sidelined from negotiations. But I want to point out that no one sidelined them \u2013 they sidelined themselves,\u201d Mr Putin said, accusing European leaders of \u201ccutting ties with Russia\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy did they do this? Because they adopted the idea of \u200b\u200binflicting a strategic defeat on Russia and, apparently, they still live in these illusions … They mistook wishful thinking for reality at the time. But they can\u2019t and won\u2019t admit it to themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

In some of his most aggressive comments aimed at Europe, Mr Putin added: \u201cWe don\u2019t intend to fight with Europe, I\u2019ve said that a hundred times. But if Europe suddenly decides to fight and starts it \u2013 then we are ready right now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr Trump\u2019s return to the White House in January gave Russia high hopes of securing a favourable end to its invasion of Ukraine, due to his many expressions of admiration for Mr Putin and long-standing ambition of overseeing a rapprochement between the US and Russia.<\/p>\n

Each time Mr Trump\u2019s efforts to kick-start peace negotiations failed earlier this year \u2013 with Mr Putin refusing to call a ceasefire or hold talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy<\/a> \u2013 Russia blamed Kyiv and European capitals for the impasse.<\/p>\n

\"USUS special envoy Steve Witkoff and US president Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Photograph: Alexander Kazakov\/AFP via Getty Images <\/p>\n

Russia negotiator Kirill Dmitriev, a former Wall Steet banker, also arrived at the Kremlin to take part in the talks after strolling around central Moscow with Mr Kushner, a businessman, and Mr Witkoff, a property developer and long-time friend of Mr Trump. <\/p>\n

A photograph published by Russian state media when the meeting began showed that senior Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov<\/a> was also at the table, beside Mr Putin.<\/p>\n

The Kremlin says it will continue with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine until it has achieved its goal of \u201cdemilitarising\u201d the pro-western democracy and preventing it from ever joining Nato, or until its demands are met through a diplomatic settlement.<\/p>\n

Ukraine used naval drones last week to hit two tankers in the Black Sea belonging to the so-called shadow fleet that Russia uses to evade sanctions on its oil industry.<\/p>\n

Mr Putin said Russia could take \u201ccountermeasures against countries that help Ukraine\u201d or \u201ccut Ukraine off from the sea\u201d to stop what he called acts of \u201cpiracy\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian president Vladimir Putin has met White House envoys in the Kremlin to discuss a US push to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171425,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[969,42,43,3589,40,38,41,39,9688,5936,58419],"class_list":{"0":"post-171424","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-donald-trump","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-russia","12":"tag-top-news","13":"tag-top-stories","14":"tag-topnews","15":"tag-topstories","16":"tag-ukraine-crisis","17":"tag-vladimir-putin","18":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskiy"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171424","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171424"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171424\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}