There was no Ukraine compromise reached after a five-hour talk between Putin and Trump’s envoys. (PHOTO: Kremlin Press Office/Anadolu via Getty Images)
Russia and the United States failed to reach common ground on a potential peace agreement to end the war in Ukraine following a five-hour meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and two senior envoys sent by US president Donald Trump, the Kremlin said on Wednesday (3 Dec). Resolving the conflict – Europe’s deadliest since World War Two – has been a major yet unmet foreign policy goal for Trump, who has criticised both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy over the prolonged fighting.
Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law Jared Kushner held talks with Putin that continued past midnight. After the meeting, Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters that “compromises have not yet been found”, and added that “there is still a lot of work to be done”.
Ushakov said Putin reacted negatively to some of Washington’s proposals. Witkoff later visited the U.S. embassy in Moscow to brief the White House on the discussions, he added.
He also clarified that no meeting between Putin and Trump is currently planned, though he described the talks as constructive and said there were significant opportunities for economic cooperation between the two countries.
According to Ushakov, the talks touched on the “territorial problem”, a Kremlin term referring to Russia’s claim over the entire Donbas region, despite Ukraine still controlling around 5,000 sq km of the area.
“Some American draft proposals look more or less acceptable, but they need to be discussed,” he said. “Some of the formulations that have been proposed to us are not suitable for us, that is – the work will continue.”
For more on the Russia-Ukraine peace talks, read here.