Vladimir Putin (R) and his aide Yury Ushakov (L) meet with US Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff (C) at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 02 December 2025. Photo: EPA/ALEXANDER KAZAKOV / SPUTNIK / KREMLIN POOL
Talks between Vladimir Putin and US officials in the Kremlin on Tuesday were “useful, constructive and highly substantive”, but failed to bring a deal to end the war in Ukraine any closer, Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov has said.
The five-hour meeting, which began some three hours late at around 8pm local time and concluded long after midnight, included US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner on the American side and Putin, Ushakov and Kremlin Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev on the Russian side.
Speaking to reporters in the early hours of Wednesday, Ushakov said the delegations had not discussed “concrete wording or specific American proposals”, but rather the “essence” of the White House peace framework that was discussed by US and Ukrainian representatives in Florida on Sunday, including the issue of territory.
“We were able to agree on some points [but] some points drew criticism from us, and the president did not hide our critical, even negative, attitude towards a number of proposals”, Ushakov said, stressing that there was still “a lot of work ahead” to reach a peace deal.
Dmitriev, meanwhile, called the talks “productive” in a post on X.
Witkoff and Kushner had travelled to the Russian capital after two weeks of intensive diplomacy, during which the Trump administration cut down its initial peace plan from 28 points to 19.
Although both US and Ukrainian officials hailed progress made in Sunday’s talks, the document is still thought to contain several points Kyiv considers red lines, including ceding Crimea and Donbas to Russia and amending its constitution to include a pledge not to seek NATO membership, as well as significantly reducing the size of its armed forces.
In an interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity later on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the issue of territory remained central for Putin, with Russian forces fighting for the remaining 20% of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region not under Russian control.
“Only Putin can end this war on the Russian side,” Rubio said, adding that Washington had “tried to bring both sides together and see what proposals we could come up with that both sides could live with”, noting however that while some progress has been made, “we’re still not there”.
While Witkoff and Kushner had been expected to travel to Brussels for a debrief with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday, The Kyiv Post reported that that meeting had been cancelled and that the US officials would instead return to Washington.
