On Tuesday Dec. 2, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss the proposed peace deal put forward by the Trump Administration to end the war in Ukraine. After a five-hour meeting in Moscow, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov spoke to reporters to discuss some of the results, though he said both sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the negotiations publicly. What follows are excerpts from his remarks, translated from the original Russian.
“The talks were extremely useful, constructive, and very substantial. They lasted not five minutes, but five hours. This meant we had the opportunity to thoroughly discuss the prospects for further joint work to achieve a long-term peaceful resolution to the Ukrainian crisis.” Ushakov continued: “We went through those documents. We didn’t discuss specific wording or specific American proposals, but we discussed the essence of what was contained in these American documents. We could agree on some things … other things provoked our criticism.… But the main thing is that a very useful discussion took place. And the most important, I would like to emphasize once again, that the parties expressed their readiness to continue working together to achieve a long-term peaceful settlement in Ukraine.
“There was a specific discussion of territorial issues, without which we see no resolution to the crisis. Of course, we also discussed the enormous prospects for future economic cooperation between our two countries. Incidentally, this had been discussed at length earlier, at previous meetings. But now it was emphasized that if we truly want to cooperate—and there are enormous opportunities for this—then we must demonstrate a genuine commitment to it, both in Moscow and Washington.
“Overall, it was a very useful, good conversation. And, of course, it began with Trump’s representatives conveying greetings and best wishes from their President to Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin. And, in turn, our President asked the partners to convey friendly greetings to Trump. Naturally, he conveyed not only friendly greetings, but he also asked them to convey a number of important political signals, which his interlocutors took note of and, naturally, will report back to Washington.”
Ushakov said that the next steps are to continue contacts between the various levels of representatives. Whether a meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin will be arranged “will depend on the progress we are able to achieve along this path.”
