Russia rules out big concessions on Ukraine
Russia will not make a major concession on its peace plan for Ukraine after a leaked recording of a call involving US envoy Steve Witkoff showed it had advised Moscow on how to make an offer to Donald Trump.
Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week with other senior US officials and hold talks with Russian leaders about a possible plan to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine, the deadliest war in Europe since World War II.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday he was ready to advance the US-backed framework to end the war and discuss contentious issues with the US president in talks he said should also include European allies.
Kiev and its European allies are concerned that details of the plan leaked last week show it acquiesces to Russia’s key demands – blocking Ukraine’s entry into NATO, Russian control of one-fifth of Ukraine and limiting the size of the Ukrainian military.
US policy towards the war in Ukraine has changed direction significantly since the northern summer. Trump’s hastily organized Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin raised concerns that Washington was ready to accept many of Russia’s demands, but ultimately resulted in increased US pressure on Russia.
The latest peace proposal caught many in Washington, Europe and Kiev off guard, raising concerns that Trump might be willing to force Ukraine to sign a peace deal aimed at Moscow.
The plan and the leaked Witkoff call prompted unusually harsh criticism from Trump’s fellow Republicans, who have generally rallied with him since he began his second term.
Trump later said progress had been made and that Moscow had made concessions even though the war in which Russian forces were advancing would only go “in one direction.”
But while welcoming the Trump administration’s efforts, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told reporters in Moscow on Wednesday: “There can be no question of compromising or compromising our approaches to these key points.”
Moscow also expressed concern about the leak to Bloomberg News of a transcript of a call between Witkoff and Putin’s foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, in which the US envoy gave Ushakov advice on how to present a peace plan to Trump.
Aboard Air Force One, Trump dismissed a reporter’s question about why Witkoff appeared to be coaching Russian officials as “just what a dealmaker does” and “a very standard form of negotiation.” But Russia said the leak was an unacceptable attempt to undermine peace efforts and amounted to hybrid warfare.
Ushakov said he used WhatsApp to talk to Witkoff several times, and Russian newspaper Kommersant, which interviewed Ushakov, published a story with the headline: “Who set up Steve Witkoff?”
Bloomberg said he was reviewing the recording of the call. It was unclear how Bloomberg obtained the recording.
A Bloomberg News spokesperson said: “We stand behind our story.”
On Tuesday, Trump said Witkoff would meet with Putin and include Jared Kushner, who helped negotiate the agreement between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas that brought an uneasy ceasefire in the Gaza war.
“As for Witkoff, I can say that a preliminary agreement has been reached for him to come to Moscow next week,” Ushakov told reporters.
When asked by journalists whether a peace agreement was close, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov quoted the Russian news agency Interfax as saying: “Wait, it’s too early to say that.”
Russian forces control more than 19 percent of Ukraine after Moscow’s invasion in 2022 and made the fastest advances in 2025 since 2022, but advances remain slow and Kiev says Russia is inflicting heavy casualties to achieve them.
