Russia holds firm after U.S. envoys’ Moscow session with Putin fails to advance Ukraine peace efforts.
Senior U.S. representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held lengthy talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, but no progress emerged on a Ukraine settlement. Kremlin aides called it fruitful yet rejected key proposal elements, building on prior Geneva and Florida refinements to a 19-point U.S. draft from the original 28.
Putin beforehand spurned Kyiv-backed changes, stating if Europe “wants to go to war and starts one, we are ready right now”. Aide Yuri Ushakov said Moscow “agreed with some points… but some things we criticised”: “We have not come up with a compromise version yet… A lot of work lies ahead.”
Profound rifts linger concerning territorial concessions in Ukrainian-held zones and the framework for continental security commitments, as Russia clings to precedents from prior Trump-Putin engagements in Alaska.
Zelenskyy saw prime prospects: “Everything depends on today’s discussions,” demanding Kyiv input and NATO-style shields so “We have to stop the war in such a manner that in one year, Russia would not come back”. Trump called it “a mess”; Putin digs in amid battlefield edges and U.S. truce threats.
Fierce engagements persist, notably at Pokrovsk—where Ukraine contests Russian takeover assertions despite circulated Telegram footage of ensigns, upholding sway in northern districts amid substantial adversary tolls—alongside rebuttals to gains in Vovchansk and Kupyansk.
Odesa endured new drone assaults yielding fatalities. Tracing to 2014’s Crimea appropriation and eastern insurrections after Kyiv’s regime change, the onslaught has inflicted tens of thousands of military losses and exceeding 14,000 civilian fatalities by UN reckoning, with ceaseless drone and missile onslaughts ravaging nurseries, hospitals, and dwellings.