US envoy Witkoff meets with Putin in Moscow – DW – 12/03/2025

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Tuesday that Washington has made “some progress” in talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine.

Rubio told Fox News that talks have focused on identifying terms Kyiv could accept while securing its long-term security.

“What we have tried to do, and I think have made some progress, is figure out, what could the Ukrainians live with that gives them security guarantees for the future,” he said.

Rubio said the US hopes the agreement would allow Ukrainians “not just to rebuild their economy, but to prosper as a country.”

Hours-long talks between the Russian government and US envoy Steve Witkoff, along with President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, drew to a close, with no clear solutions to the conflict.

The Russian government said that no compromise had been reached on the critical issue of territory in Ukraine.

“So far we haven’t found a compromise, but some American solutions can be discussed,” top Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told journalists.

“There were some points we could agree on,” Ushakov added, but “the president did not hide our critical, even negative, stance on a number of proposals.”

But Ushakov praised the talks, adding that “the conversation was very useful and constructive,” however “a lot of work lies ahead both in Washington in Moscow.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to social media soon after the US negotiators arrived in the Kremlin on Tuesday, saying Ukrainians need “clarity” in any potential peace accord, including guarantees that Russia would not launch “yet another invasion.” 

“The United States says that a lot of blood has been shed and it’s enough. And we fully support them. But we must end this war in a way that prevents Russia from coming back a year later with a third invasion,” he said. “They did not achieve their goal of occupying our country. But I am not sure their objectives have changed.” 

The Ukrainian president said there would be no “simple solutions” to ending the war. 

“What matters is that everything is fair and transparent. That there are no games played behind Ukraine’s back. That nothing is decided without Ukraine — about us, about our future,” he wrote. 

Territories and frozen assets were among the most difficult questions, he said, as well as security guarantees. 

“We could on strong security guarantees from the United States and Europe, and some other leaders,” he said. 

A NATO official briefing reporters in Brussels on condition of anonymity on Tuesday said that according to his information, Russia controlled “95%” of Pokrovsk. 

This comes as Russia claims total control of the city while Ukraine says its forces are still fighting in the north. 

The NATO representative said Ukraine was “conducting an orderly withdrawal” as Russian forces controlled “the vast majority of the city.” 

In response to a question from DW’s Xenia Polska, he said it was important to note that taking Pokrovsk was something Russia had expected to achieve more than a year ago. 

“It has spent a lot of Russian lives in the pursuit of this goal. It destroyed much of the city in the process, and it’s been very, very slow progress to get here,” he said. “But the during that timeframe, the Ukrainians have been able to take measures so that the fall of Pokrovsk will not have the same strategic impact that it would have had, had this occurred on the Russian timeline.”

He estimated, based on previous NATO estimates of Russia sustaining around 360,000 casualties a year, with so much of the fighting centered around Pokrovsk this year, that Russia would have lost “several hundred per day” in the area.

The EU and Britain are trying to protect Ukraine’s interests, and their own, as the US leads negotiations to end Moscow’s Ukraine war. But Washington has been keeping European allies at arm’s length. 

Read more about that in this DW article, here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin received US envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the Kremlin on Tuesday. 

Images broadcast on state television showed Putin greeting the two US businessmen turned diplomats. 

“So pleased to see you,” Putin told Witkoff and Kushner, sitting alongside translators. 

The US duo had earlier been pictured landing in the Russian capital and being shown part of the city by Kirill Dmitriev, the chairman of the Russia Direct Investment Fund sovereign wealth fund sanctioned by the US government in 2022.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin accused European powers of trying to thwart potential peace talks with Ukraine by putting forward proposals they knew would be “absolutely unacceptable” to Moscow. 

“They don’t have a peace agenda, they’re on the side of war,” he alleged.

Putin said that Russia did not want a war with European powers, but that it was ready to fight if Europe did want a direct conflict.

The Russian president argued that European powers had locked themselves out of potential peace talks by cutting off contacts with his administration. 

European powers meanwhile accuse Putin’s Russia of roughly the same thing: floating conditions for a supposed peace that it knew to be unacceptable to Ukraine and its neighbors via the Trump administration so it could then complain at the revisions that followed.

Putin was speaking ahead of a visit to Moscow by real estate developer Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss the latest peace proposals. 

This follows talks between Ukrainian and US officials over the weekend.

President Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks that Russia’s army was in complete control of Pokrovsk in Ukraine. 

A focal point on part of the front line for well over a year, Russia has claimed decisive advances around the modal point in recent days and weeks. 

Ukrainian authorities however say that their forces retain control of the north of Pokrovsk. 

Putin said the small city, long nearly abandoned by its civilian population of around 60,000 prior to Russia’s invasion, was of “special significance” and would prove a “great base for fulfilling goals.” 

The logistics hub sits on key road and rail lines and could prove a gateway towards the remaining large cities in the Donetsk region still controlled by Ukraine. 

With the battle lines in Ukraine largely static for years, Pokrovsk would be the biggest settlement claimed by Russia since the fall of Avdiivka, an almost-deserted town of around 30,000 people before the war, in February 2024.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said he is confident that US-led efforts to end the war in Ukraine could move Europe closer to peace, as American envoys meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

“We are all working to bring the war against Ukraine to an end, with a just and lasting peace. We welcome the ongoing efforts led by the United States to make this a reality,” Rutte told journalists.

“I am confident that these sustained efforts will, eventually, restore peace in Europe.”

Rutte said Kyiv had already shown it was prepared to “play ball” with President Donald Trump’s push to halt the fighting. “Today, we will see whether the Russians are willing also to engage. That’s now being tested,” he said.

NATO foreign ministers are set to discuss the US approach at their meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine’s delegation has delivered a full in-person briefing after meetings in the United States.

Zelenskyy, who is visiting Ireland, posted that Ukraine’s national security council secretary Rustem Umerov and negotiators in Florida outlined the key points raised by the US side. He said the talks were based on the so-called Geneva document, which had been criticized as conceding too much to Russia but which has since been refined.

Zelenskyy said US officials were given a detailed update on front-line conditions. Both sides discussed the practicality of possible moves at the front and the challenges of protecting Ukraine from Russian strikes, including the risk of violations if a ceasefire were reached.

“Our diplomats are actively working with all partners to ensure that European countries and other participants in the Coalition of the Willing are meaningfully involved in developing decisions,” the Ukrainian president said.

“Ukraine approaches all diplomatic efforts with utmost seriousness — we are committed to achieving a real peace and guaranteed security. This is exactly the level of commitment that must be compelled from the Russian side, and this task can be accomplished only together with our partners,” he added.

The EU and Canada have announced that Ottawa will join in Europe’s €150 billion ($174 billion) SAFE defense financing instrument.

The fund has been set up as the EU seeks to boost its defense industry in response to growing military aggression from Russia.

Read more about the story here.

A Ukrainian drone strike has ignited a fire at an oil facility in Russia’s Oryol region, according to local authorities.

Governor Andrey Klychkov said on Telegram that the blaze broke out at an energy plant in the Livny district and that no injuries were reported.

Unverified videos of the fire circulated on social media. The outlet Astra reported that residents said an oil depot had been targeted.

The city of Oryol said it would have to introduce restrictions.

“It will be necessary to limit the heat and hot water supply to buildings in the Sovetsky, Zheleznodorozhny and Severny
districts of the city of Oryol,” the governor of the Oryol region, Andrey Klychkov, wrote on social media.

Russia has been waging war on Ukraine for more than three and a half years. Ukraine has routinely struck locations deep inside Russia as part of its defense effort, aiming to disrupt the country’s oil sector, cut supplies to the Russian military and weaken a key source of revenue for Moscow.

The northern part of the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk is still under the control of Ukrainian forces, a military unit fighting there told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

The statement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed what his commanders described as the full capture of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps of airborne assault troops said it has launched assaults in the city’s south, where Russian forces remain dominant.

Pokrovsk is an important logistics hub that had a population of around 60,000 prior to the war.

If Russia were to capture the city, it could use it as a base from which to advance on the two largest Ukrainian-controlled cities remaining in the Donetsk region: Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

The Swedish government said on Tuesday it will donate 1.1 billion Swedish crowns ($116.41 million, €100.3 million) to Ukraine.

The fund is meant to support civilians as the country braces for winter.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has declined to guarantee a €140 billion ($162.5 billion) loan for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported.

The decision undermines an European Union (EU) plan to take out a big loan, using frozen Russian assets as backing, to fund Ukraine.

The ECB said the proposal violated its mandate, FT reported citing sources, hindering EU from moving forward with the plan.