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Talks between Vladimir Putin and the US envoy on ending the Ukraine war were “very fruitful” but there is still a lot of work to be done, a senior aide to the Russian president said as Ukrainian and European officials met in Brussels.
Yuri Ushakov said Putin and US envoy Steve Witkoff focused on the “importance” of US proposals during a five-hour meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, which is trying to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
He said that Moscow found some proposals acceptable, while others adopted a “critical and even negative attitude”, which Putin “did not hide”.
“No agreement has been reached yet,” he said.
According to Interfax, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia had not rejected Trump’s peace plan and said talks would continue behind closed doors.
Peskov described the meeting as “for the first time there has been such a direct exchange of views (…) some things were accepted, some things were marked as unacceptable and this is a normal working procedure for finding compromises”.
The Kremlin said Russia and the US would continue talks at the level of envoys and allies, with a possible meeting between Putin and Trump depending on progress.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s national security adviser, Rustam Umerov, met with European counterparts in Brussels on Wednesday, briefing them on peace talks and discussing security guarantees for Ukraine following any peace deal, he said.
Zelensky had said earlier on Wednesday that the talks took place in preparation for a meeting with Donald Trump administration officials in the US as shuttle diplomacy continued over a possible peace deal.
Witkoff traveled to Moscow after Russian officials said they were ready to discuss a US-drafted peace plan with Russian input. US President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner also attended the Kremlin meeting.
However, officials signaled their opposition to a revised, watered-down version of the plan incorporating changes sought by Ukraine. Full terms of the revised plan have not been disclosed.
Ushakov said that at the meeting with Putin and Vitkoff several versions of the peace plan were discussed and the question of the region was raised, as well as the prospects for economic cooperation between Russia and the United States.
Moscow is insisting that Ukrainian forces leave the remaining fifth of Donetsk province, which they still hold, a major sticking point between Russia and Ukraine.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said the Moscow talks were “important” but the military alliance needed to keep up pressure on Russia if the talks fail.
“Hopefully it will yield results. And if it takes too long or it doesn’t yield results, the best way to put pressure on the Russians is to do two things: One is to make sure the Russians understand that arms will continue to flow into Ukraine,” Rutte said.
He said this should go hand in hand with the increasing pressure of economic sanctions. “This is the best way to change Putin’s calculations.”
Ushakov said that some regional proposals made by the US were “more or less acceptable”, but others were not favorable to Moscow.
Speaking at a meeting of his Cabinet on Tuesday, Trump described efforts to end the war as “not an easy situation.”
Earlier, Putin had accused European countries of weakening Washington’s efforts to end the war. The President said, “They have no peace agenda. They are for war.”
In a belligerent speech, Putin threatened to “completely cut off Ukraine from the sea” in response to Kiev’s attacks on oil tankers belonging to Russia.
He stated that “We have no intention of fighting Europe – I have said this hundreds of times. But if Europe decides to start a war, we are ready right now.”
“Ultimately, NATO is a defensive alliance. We will remain a defensive alliance but make no mistake, we are ready and willing to do whatever it takes to protect our 1 billion people and secure our territory,” Rutte said Wednesday after a meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels.
Additional reporting by Henry Foy
