The Kremlin said on Tuesday that talks between President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and President Vladimir Putin were “constructive” and “very useful,” but did not release any details of the discussion.
“No compromises have been found as of yet,” Putin’s aide Yury Ushakov said on Tuesday evening. “We discussed the substance, not specific wording and solutions. The parties see enormous potential for cooperation.”
Ushakov enigmatically stated that some of the American proposals for a ceasefire in Ukraine “are acceptable to Russia,” while “others are not.”
“We specifically discussed territorial issues, without which the crisis cannot be settled, as we see it. Of course, we also talked about the broad prospects for future economic interaction between our countries,” he said.
Asked by a reporter if the Witkoff-Putin talks brought peace in Ukraine closer or further away, Ushakov replied: “Definitely not further.”
The discussions in Moscow, which were also attended by President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and two of Putin’s top aides, ran for about five hours – nearly twice as long as usual for such meetings.
One of the Putin aides who attended the meeting, economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev, praised the talks as “productive” but offered no further details. In fact, “productive” was his one-word summary of the five-hour event:
“No, we would not be characterizing anything at this time,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov responded when the press asked for a more detailed summary of the talks on Wednesday.
“It’s our prerogative to keep a lid on that. The more silence around these talks, the better chance of a good result,” he said.
Peskov insisted that it was “not correct” to say that Putin has rejected the United States peace overture, but European leaders on Wednesday accused Putin of merely feigning interest in a ceasefire.
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper goaded Putin to “end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace.”
Moscow on Wednesday claimed to have scored a significant battlefield victory by capturing the eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, a claim disputed by Ukrainian military officials, although they conceded that the situation around Pokrovsk was “extremely difficult” for them.
The Ukrainian Defense Ministry accused the Russians of manufacturing the story about capturing Pokrovsk – bolstered by “flag-planting” videos intended to give the impression that Russian forces control the entire city – to gain more leverage in ceasefire negotiations.
Putin himself said capturing Pokrovsk would give his forces “a good foothold for accomplishing all the objectives set at the start” of Russia’s invasion, because the “Russian army can conveniently advance in all directions.”