White House envoy Witkoff meets Putin in Moscow over Ukraine peace deal

White House ambassador Steve Witkoff in Moscow He is due to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday after a whirlwind weekend of talks aimed at securing a peace deal with Ukraine.

All eyes on Putin as President Witkoff and Jared Kushner Donald TrumpPutin, Trump’s son-in-law and occasional foreign policy envoy, is considering whether Putin will accept the 19-point proposal they finalized with their Ukrainian counterparts after initial U.S.-Russian talks.

The latest round of diplomacy represents the most active step towards a potential solution since the full-scale invasion in 2022, but negotiators acknowledge significant obstacles remain. Fundamental disputes over territory, Ukraine’s long-term security arrangements and the terms of a ceasefire have not yet been resolved, and officials say progress will depend on whether Putin shows flexibility in meetings this week.

Following the first 28-item plan he mediated Witkoff and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev Seen by Kiev as too positive for Moscow, US and Ukrainian officials went back to the drawing board. They met again in Geneva at the end of November to work on a shortened version of the plan and in Florida over the weekend to hammer out additional details.

PEACE WORKS ARE GROWING MOMENTUM IN UKRAINE, BUT EXPERTS FEAR PUTIN WILL NOT BEND

Both sides said the talks were productive but did not provide any details about what issues still divide them.

Foreign Minister: “There is a lot of work left” Marco Rubio He said the following after the meeting. “But today was again a very productive and useful session and I think additional progress was made.”

“We have a good chance of making a deal,” Trump said.

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Despite the momentum, the two sides remain far apart. Many of the most sensitive issues were left to the meeting between key leaders.

Russia insists Ukraine cannot join North Atlantic Treaty Organization Ukraine changed its constitution Making NATO membership a national goal. In the original 28-point plan, Russia also demanded that Ukraine reduce its peacetime armed forces to 600,000.

European and Ukrainian officials have instead set a limit of 800,000, according to the Financial Times. Ukraine currently has around 880,000 soldiers; this number was approximately 209,000 before the 2022 invasion.

All eyes are on Putin as Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and occasional foreign policy envoy, consider whether Putin might accept the 19-point proposal they finalized with their Ukrainian counterparts after the first U.S.-Russia talks. (Kremlin Press Office / Statement/Anatolia, via Getty Images)

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The biggest impasse continues to be land privileges. A draft of the earlier proposal proposed de facto recognition of Crimea and most of the Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhia regions as Russia.

Complicating the process was the sudden dismissal of Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff and chief negotiator, who resigned after a corruption investigation led to a raid on his home. Days earlier, Yermak had publicly insisted that Ukraine would not give up territory for peace.

“Not a single sane person today would sign a document to give up land,” he told The Atlantic magazine.

Putin said at the end of November that he was ready for “serious” talks, but also maintained that Russia had the upper hand and would only stop the war if Ukrainian forces withdrew from territory they had recaptured on the front line.

Complicating the process was the sudden dismissal of Andriy Yermak, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s chief of staff and chief negotiator, who resigned after a corruption investigation led to a raid on his home. (Ukrinform/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

“If they do not withdraw, we will achieve this by force,” he said.

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Analysts say Washington still has tools it can use if talks stall, including tightening sanctions and expanding military aid to Ukraine. But many of the strongest economic measures, such as penalties on Russia’s leading energy and financial institutions, are already in place, and the United States has provided Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars in military aid since 2022.

This leaves a narrower set of options if negotiations reach an impasse.

Trump has expressed frustration in recent days with the slow pace of diplomacy, saying publicly that he believes a decision “should have happened a long time ago,” but officials have not indicated that Washington is preparing to withdraw from the talks.