US President Donald Trump said last night that a meeting between two US envoys with Russian President Vladimir Putin was ‘reasonably good’ but that it is unclear what happens now.
Trump told reporters in the Oval Office that the Russians ‘very strongly’ want to make a deal to end the war in Ukraine.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.
“What comes out of that meeting I can’t tell you because it does take two to tango,” Trump said.
A White House official said earlier that Witkoff and Kushner had briefed Trump and Ukrainian officials after a ‘thorough, productive meeting’ with Putin in Moscow.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Putin accepted some US proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine and rejected others but that Russia was ready to meet US negotiators as many times as it took to reach an agreement.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov was speaking after the talks in Moscow.
Asked if it would be correct to say that Putin had rejected the US proposals, Peskov said that it would not.
“A direct exchange of views took place for the first time,” Peskov said. “Some things were accepted, some things were marked as unacceptable – this is a normal working process of finding a compromise.”
Peskov said that Russia was grateful to Trump for his efforts but that the Kremlin would not be giving a running commentary on discussions with the United States as publicity was unlikely to be constructive.
“Work is currently being carried out at a working expert level,” Peskov said.
“It is at the expert level that certain results should be achieved that will then become the basis for contacts at the highest level.”
A leaked set of 28 US draft peace proposals emerged in November, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said they bowed to Moscow’s main demands.
European powers then came up with a counter-proposal, and at talks in Geneva, the US and Ukraine said they had created an ‘updated and refined peace framework’ to end the war.
Putin on Tuesday said European powers were trying to sink the peace talks by proposing ideas which were absolutely unacceptable to Russia.
Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters after the Witkoff talks that Moscow had previously received a 27-point set of proposals and then four additional documents which were discussed with Witkoff.
Putin last week said that the US and Ukraine had divided up the initial proposals into four components.
The exact contents have not been disclosed.
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