Putin Meets With Witkoff and Kushner for Nearly Five Hours
Paul Sonne and Valerie Hopkins
Reporting from Berlin
President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia held talks for nearly five hours late Tuesday with Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, negotiating with the two U.S. emissaries as Washington pushed for an end to Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The negotiators discussed the substance of U.S. peace proposals but did not delve into the wording of any provisions, reach any specific compromises or agree to a new summit between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump, the Kremlin’s top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told journalists after the marathon talks concluded.
“The discussion was very useful, constructive and very substantive and lasted for not five minutes but five hours,” Mr. Ushakov said.
During the talks, Mr. Putin went through the U.S. proposals that the Kremlin had received in four documents ahead of the meeting, Mr. Ushakov said.
“We could agree on some things, and the president confirmed this to his interlocutors,” Mr. Ushakov said. “Other things provoked criticism, and the president also made no secret of our critical and even negative attitude toward a number of proposals. But the main thing is that a very useful discussion took place.”
A 28-point U.S. peace plan revealed last month drew pushback from Ukraine and Europe for being weighted toward the Kremlin. Some provisions have been softened, American officials said, after Ukrainian and European officials weighed in on the plan.
In addition to Mr. Ushakov, Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, joined Mr. Putin during the talks on Tuesday, which stretched past midnight local time at the Kremlin.
Part of the discussion revolved around the question of territory, and Mr. Ushakov said some of the American formulations “look more or less acceptable but need to be discussed.” Others that were proposed “don’t work for us,” he said, declining to go into details. Ukraine has rejected Russia’s demands that Kyiv hand over land in eastern Ukraine that it still controls.
“There is still a lot of work to be done, both by Washington and by Moscow,” Mr. Ushakov said, noting that the two sides had agreed to stay in contact to move the talks forward.
Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner decamped to the U.S. Embassy in Moscow after the meeting to report the results of the talks to Mr. Trump, the Kremlin aide said. Mr. Kushner does not have a formal role in the Trump administration, but played a role in brokering the cease-fire in Gaza.
Mr. Witkoff’s visit to Moscow, his sixth since January, took place two days after American and Ukrainian delegations met in Miami to continue negotiations over the potential peace plan. Both sides called those talks constructive but said more work was needed, without detailing the unresolved issues.
Ahead of the talks, Mr. Putin made a series of public appearances promoting Russia’s battlefield progress and economic resilience.
The Russian leader has been underscoring Russia’s upper hand in the war and willingness to continue fighting, in part to convince his interlocutors that Kyiv is faltering on the front line and must settle for a deal on his terms.
Ahead of the meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Putin said that Russia would continue to advance against Ukraine on the battlefield and portrayed the Kyiv leadership as weakened.
He said that Russian forces would expand strikes on Ukrainian ports and ships in response to attacks on Russia’s “shadow fleet” — the decrepit ships the country uses to transport oil and evade sanctions. Mr. Putin also portrayed Ukraine’s leadership as out of touch with the reality on the front.
“Ukraine’s leadership is currently preoccupied with other matters than the situation in the war zone. It’s as if they live on another planet,” Mr. Putin said on Tuesday, referring to a corruption scandal that has been roiling the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky. “And then, constantly on the move begging for money, they have no time for current affairs, either in the economy or at the front.”
Mr. Zelensky, seeking support from European allies, met in Paris on Monday with President Emmanuel Macron of France. The Ukrainian leader then traveled to Ireland for meetings on Tuesday.
Mr. Zelensky said he would wait for an update from the American negotiators after the talks at the Kremlin and would possibly meet with them on Wednesday for an update.
The Ukrainian leader warned in a statement on X that any deal needed to ensure that Russia would not attack Ukraine again after Moscow’s invasions in 2014 and 2022. Mr. Putin has demanded limits on Ukraine’s military, meaning that Russia would be free to build up its force after the signing of a peace deal, while Ukraine would face restrictions.
“We must end this war in a way that prevents Russia from coming back a year later with a third invasion,” Mr. Zelensky wrote. “They did not achieve their goal of occupying our country. But I am not sure their objectives have changed.”
The Ukrainian leader has identified Western security guarantees as among the three biggest issues yet to be resolved in negotiations with the United States.
In a visit to the battlefield on Sunday and in remarks ahead of the meeting on Tuesday, Mr. Putin highlighted Russia’s claims to have captured Pokrovsk, a strategic city in eastern Ukraine. Kyiv has denied that Moscow has full control of the territory.
The battlefield map maintained by DeepState, a Ukrainian group with ties to the military, showed that the Russians had taken most of the center of Pokrovsk. But Ukrainian military units said in public posts on Tuesday that the fight was still continuing.
Andriy Kovalenko, a senior Ukrainian government official focused on Russian disinformation operations, said on Monday in a post on Telegram that the Russian military was lying about fully capturing certain cities where fighting remained fierce in an attempt to shape the opinions of Western negotiators.
“The Russians will make many attempts to exert pressure on the front in the coming weeks and will accompany this with loud statements,” Mr. Kovalenko said. “All this is done exclusively for the Western audience and to raise the stakes in diplomacy.”
He added, “The fighting for Pokrovsk continues.”
Amid the peace talks, the Kremlin has sought to sideline Europe, regularly describing European nations backing Ukraine as pro-war.
Mr. Putin said on Tuesday ahead of the meeting that he was engaging with U.S. envoys because Europe’s actions “are aimed at only one thing: to completely block this peace process.”
The Russian leader also threatened Ukraine’s European allies, which have been scrambling to shore up their defenses against Moscow.
“We are not planning to fight with Europe, but if Europe suddenly starts a war with us, we are ready right now,” Mr. Putin said.
He suggested that Russia would be willing to use even greater violence in such a conflict than it has in Ukraine, a likely reference to Moscow’s nuclear arsenal, the largest in the world.
The White House has strongly pressured Ukraine to agree to a peace plan, with Mr. Trump initially giving Kyiv until Thanksgiving to make a decision. That deadline lapsed as negotiations continued, with Kyiv and its European allies trying to soften the U.S. plan.
Russia has set a series of conditions for halting the war. It has said, among other things, that Ukraine must cede its remaining territory in the Donbas region, drop its aspirations to join NATO and secure the status of the Russian language and the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine. Ukraine has refused to accept Russia’s demands.
In November, Russian forces almost doubled the battlefield gains they made in September, according to DeepState, which uses geolocated combat footage and tips from Ukrainian Army sources to monitor battlefield developments. While still relatively small, the Russian advances highlighted the increasing strain on Ukraine’s military.
Ivan Nechepurenko contributed reporting from St. Petersburg, Russia, Alina Lobzina from London and Cassandra Vinograd from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Paul Sonne is an international correspondent, focusing on Russia and the varied impacts of President Vladimir V. Putin’s domestic and foreign policies, with a focus on the war against Ukraine.
Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow.
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