Thursday, December 4, 2025 -The path ahead for Ukraine peace talks is unclear, Donald Trump has said, after what he called “reasonably good” talks between Russian president Vladimir Putin and US envoys which nonetheless failed to achieve a breakthrough
After their hours-long meeting at the Kremlin on
Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner,
were set to meet top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Florida on Thursday.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump
said Putin would like to make a deal, but “what comes out of that meeting I
can’t tell you because it does take two to tango.” The president added that the
US had “something pretty well worked out [with Ukraine].”
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 “compromises have not yet been found”.
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 partially
occupies.
A Russian official told reporters that “so far, a compromise
hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which the Kremlin sees
“no resolution to the crisis”.
Ukraine’s president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has ruled out
giving up territory that Russia has captured and on Wednesday said his
team was preparing for meetings in the United States, adding that dialogue with
Trump’s representatives will continue.
“Only by taking Ukraine’s interests into account is a
dignified peace possible,” he said.
Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha, took a stronger
line, urging Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”
The negotiations have intensified at a difficult juncture
for Kyiv, which has been losing ground to Russia on its eastern front while
facing its biggest corruption scandal of the war.
Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, who had led the Ukrainian
delegation at peace talks, resigned on Friday after anti-corruption
investigators searched his home. Meanwhile Russia’s 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.
“The progress and nature of the negotiations were influenced
by the successes of the Russian army on the battlefield in recent weeks,”
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in the US-Russia talks, told
reporters.
In November, a leaked draft of a US peace proposal
emerged, alarming Ukrainian and European officials who said that it was
weighted too much in Moscow’s. The proposal would have seen Ukraine
cede territory to Russia, Russia readmitted to the G8 and Ukraine banned from
joining Nato
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 to end the war.
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 if it started one.
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 “end the bluster and the bloodshed and
be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace”.
“What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s
pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” Estonian foreign minister Margus
Tsahkna said at a meeting of European Nato foreign ministers. “It’s pretty
obvious that he doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”
Nato secretary-general Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners
will keep supplying military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.
On Wednesday the European Commission also announced it would
move ahead with controversial plans to fund Ukraine with a loan based
on Russia’s 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.
EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later this
month, as Ukraine faces a looming funding crunch.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, the UN general assembly for the
immediate and unconditional return of Ukrainian children “forcibly transferred”
to Russia. Ukraine has accused Russia of abducting at least 20,000 Ukrainian
children since the start of the conflict in February 2022.
The assembly adopted the non-binding resolution by a vote of
91-12, with 57 abstentions. Russia was among the countries rejecting the
measure.
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