Five-Hour Kremlin Talks With US Envoys End Without Ukraine Peace Breakthrough, Putin Aide Says

Five hours of high-level talks in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior U.S. envoys ended on Tuesday without a breakthrough on a proposed peace agreement for Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said early Wednesday.

Ushakov characterized the meeting with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as "very useful, constructive, and highly substantive," but said "a compromise option was not found." He added that some American proposals appeared "more or less acceptable" and will require further discussion, while other points "do not suit us."

Key sticking points

• Russia insists that Ukraine formally renounce plans to join NATO.
• Moscow demands territorial concessions in the Donbas region, which it has partially annexed.
• Broader Russian requests include security guarantees and recognition of territorial changes that Kyiv and many European partners reject as curtailing Ukrainian sovereignty.

The U.S. side had not issued a formal public statement immediately after the Kremlin meeting. Ahead of the talks, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the administration was "very optimistic" about reaching an agreement to end the three-and-a-half-year war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he was "waiting for signals" from the U.S. delegation and expected to communicate with them after their Moscow talks. He indicated Ukraine would be prepared to send a higher-level delegation if U.S. signals suggested a credible path to rapid, comprehensive decisions.

Hours before the meeting, President Putin warned that while Russia had no plans to start a war with Europe, it was "ready" to respond if Europe initiated hostilities. He also accused some European leaders of blocking the U.S.-proposed peace plan by making demands "absolutely unacceptable for Russia," and suggested that certain European partners were impeding negotiations.

The Kremlin appears to be seeking an agreement that addresses what it calls the conflict's "underlying reasons," a formulation that has been used to justify demands such as halting NATO expansion and obtaining formal recognition of Russian control over occupied Ukrainian regions. U.S. and European officials, and Kyiv, have rejected elements of that framework as unacceptable.

A senior NATO official told reporters there was no evidence Moscow was prepared to make "meaningful concessions" to end the war, saying Russia continues to press territorial claims and to seek reductions in Ukraine's military capability.

The Kremlin meeting followed separate U.S.–Ukrainian talks in Miami earlier in the week that U.S. officials described as productive. In Moscow, Witkoff and Kushner were publicly visible before the Kremlin session, and their presence underscored the high-profile, informal nature of parts of the diplomatic push.

Ushakov said a meeting between President Putin and former U.S. President Donald Trump had not been scheduled and would "depend on the progress we’re able to achieve." He emphasized that discussions would continue as all parties assess whether common ground can be found to halt the conflict.

Sources: Statements by Yuri Ushakov; remarks attributed to Presidents Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky; comments from a senior NATO official.