Russian President Vladimir Putin says that some proposals in a U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine are unacceptable to the Kremlin, indicating that any deal is still some way off despite intense shuttle diplomacy by American envoys.
President Donald Trump has set in motion the most intense diplomatic push to stop the fighting since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago. But the peace efforts have once again run into demands that are hard to reconcile, especially over whether Ukraine must give up land to Russia and how it can be kept safe from any future Russian aggression.
Putin said in comments published Thursday that his five-hour talks with U.S. envoys this week were “necessary” and “useful,” but also “difficult work.” Some of the proposals were unacceptable to the Kremlin, he said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, are set to meet with Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, on Thursday in Miami for further talks, according to a senior Trump administration official who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Putin spoke to the India Today TV channel before his visit to New Delhi on Thursday. Before the full interview was broadcast, Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti quoted some of Putin’s remarks in it.
Tass quoted Putin as saying in the interview that at the talks in the Kremlin on Tuesday, the sides “had to go through each point” of the U.S. peace proposal, “which is why it took so long.”
