{"id":610673,"date":"2025-12-04T01:57:18","date_gmt":"2025-12-04T01:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/610673\/"},"modified":"2025-12-04T01:57:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-04T01:57:18","slug":"path-to-peace-in-ukraine-unclear-says-trump-as-us-envoys-prepare-to-meet-kyiv-official-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/610673\/","title":{"rendered":"Path to peace in Ukraine unclear, says Trump, as US envoys prepare to meet Kyiv official | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The path ahead for Ukraine peace talks is unclear, Donald Trump has said, after what he called \u201creasonably good\u201d talks between Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/a> and US envoys which nonetheless failed to achieve a breakthrough<\/p>\n

After their hours-long meeting at the Kremlin<\/a> on Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner, were set to meet top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said Putin would like to make a deal, but \u201cwhat comes out of that meeting I can\u2019t tell you because it does take two to tango.\u201d The president added that the US had \u201csomething pretty well worked out [with Ukraine].\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that Putin accepted some US proposals aimed at ending the war in Ukraine and was prepared to keep working to find a compromise, but that \u201ccompromises have not yet been found\u201d.<\/p>\n

Both sides agreed not to disclose the substance of their discussion at the Kremlin, but at least one major hurdle to a settlement remains; the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia<\/a> partially occupies.<\/p>\n

A Russian official told reporters that \u201cso far, a compromise hasn\u2019t been found\u201d on the issue of territory, without which the Kremlin sees \u201cno resolution to the crisis\u201d.<\/p>\n

Vladimir Putin meets US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at the Kremlin. Photograph: Alexander Kazakov\/AP<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out giving up territory<\/a> that Russia has captured and on Wednesday said his team was preparing for meetings in the United States, adding that dialogue with Trump\u2019s representatives will continue.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnly by taking Ukraine\u2019s interests into account is a dignified peace possible,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha, took a stronger line, urging Putin to \u201cstop wasting the world\u2019s time.\u201d<\/p>\n

The negotiations have intensified at a difficult juncture for Kyiv, which has been losing ground to Russia on its eastern front<\/a> while facing its biggest corruption scandal of the war<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy\u2019s chief of staff, who had led the Ukrainian delegation at peace talks, resigned on Friday after anti-corruption investigators searched his home<\/a>. Meanwhile Russia\u2019s advance in eastern Ukraine has gathered pace and Putin has said that Moscow is ready to fight on to seize the rest of the land it claims if Kyiv does not surrender it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cThe progress and nature of the negotiations were influenced by the successes of the Russian army on the battlefield in recent weeks,\u201d Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in the US-Russia talks, told reporters.<\/p>\n

In November, a leaked draft of a US peace proposal emerged<\/a>, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said that it was weighted too much in Moscow\u2019s. The proposal would have seen<\/a> Ukraine cede territory to Russia, Russia readmitted to the G8 and Ukraine banned from joining Nato<\/p>\n

European countries 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<\/a> to end the war.<\/p>\n

Putin on Tuesday accused European powers of trying to sink the peace talks by proposing ideas which were absolutely unacceptable to Moscow, while also issuing threats that Russia was ready for war with Europe<\/a> if it started one.<\/p>\n

Ukraine and its European allies have in turn accused Putin of feigning interest in peace efforts, with UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper saying on Wednesday that Russia should \u201cend the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He\u2019s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,\u201d Estonian foreign minister Margus Tsahkna said at a meeting of European Nato foreign ministers. \u201cIt\u2019s pretty obvious that he doesn\u2019t want to have any kind of peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte said Ukraine\u2019s partners will keep supplying military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.<\/p>\n

On Wednesday the European Commission also announced it would move ahead with controversial plans to fund Ukraine with a loan<\/a> based on Russia\u2019s frozen assets. In a concession to concerns raised by Belgium, which hosts most of the assets, the EU executive has also proposed the option of an EU loan based on common borrowing.<\/p>\n

EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later this month, as Ukraine faces a looming funding crunch.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere on Wednesday, the UN general assembly for the immediate and unconditional return of Ukrainian children \u201cforcibly transferred\u201d to Russia. Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting at least 20,000 Ukrainian children since the start of the conflict in February 2022.<\/p>\n

The assembly adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of 91-12, with 57 abstentions. Russia was among the countries rejecting the measure.<\/p>\n

With Reuters, the Associated Press and Agence France-Presse<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The path ahead for Ukraine peace talks is unclear, Donald Trump has said, after what he called \u201creasonably…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":610674,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-610673","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115658820443392785","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=610673"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/610673\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/610674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=610673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=610673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=610673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}