A marathon diplomatic session between Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior United States envoys concluded without a decisive step toward ending the war in Ukraine, the Kremlin confirmed on Wednesday. The high-stakes discussions, which stretched late into the night in Moscow, underscored the profound chasm between the positions held by Washington and Moscow, despite weeks of intensive preparatory diplomacy by the American delegation.
The U.S. team, which included President Donald Trump’s special envoy and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, engaged in approximately five hours of direct dialogue with Putin and his senior foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov. The central focus was a draft peace proposal advanced by the American administration, a document understood to have been revised following earlier leaks and subsequent criticism from Kyiv and European capitals that initial terms disproportionately favored Russian interests.
In a post-meeting briefing, Kremlin aide Ushakov offered a tempered assessment, indicating a lack of substantive progress on the core issues. “Compromises have not yet been found. There is still a lot of work to be done,” he stated. He elaborated that while certain elements within the American framework were deemed potentially negotiable, other provisions were firmly rejected. “Some American draft proposals look more or less acceptable, but they need to be discussed... Some of the formulations that have been proposed to us are not suitable for us,” Ushakov remarked, without divulging specific details per an agreed-upon media blackout.
A principal and persistent obstacle remains the disputed status of territories in eastern Ukraine, particularly the Donbas region. The U.S. plan must reconcile Ukraine’s insistence on restoring its territorial integrity with Russia’s assertion of control over areas it has annexed. The diplomatic impasse was foreshadowed by Putin’s combative rhetoric preceding the talks, wherein he dismissed proposed amendments from Ukrainian and European leaders as unacceptable and issued stark warnings to European nations, accusing them of fueling the conflict and threatening escalated military actions.
While the Kremlin characterized the atmosphere of the talks as “constructive” and alluded to prospective bilateral economic cooperation, the outcome signifies a continuation of the stalemate. The absence of an immediate pathway to a ceasefire or a framework for substantive negotiations dashes hopes for a near-term resolution to a conflict that has now persisted for well over three years. Furthermore, the Kremlin explicitly noted that a subsequent summit between Presidents Putin and Trump is not presently under consideration.
The lack of a breakthrough leaves the warring parties entrenched and the broader diplomatic landscape fraught with tension. The failure to bridge fundamental divides on security guarantees and territorial sovereignty during this direct, high-level contact suggests that the protracted and devastating conflict will endure, with diplomatic efforts relegated to further arduous and uncertain groundwork behind closed doors.