President Donald Trump’s special envoy is meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday for highly anticipated talks that Washington hopes will convince the Kremlin to end the war in Ukraine.
Fresh off negotiations with Ukrainian officials in Florida this weekend, Steve Witkoff is expected to lay out for Putin a version of the peace plan that has been agreed with Kyiv, hoping the Russian leader will compromise on his hard-line demands.
For months, Moscow has reiterated its readiness for peace while also signaling it was not willing to ease off on its core maximalist demands, which would leave Ukraine weak and isolated.
“This will be, we have no doubt, a very important step towards a peaceful settlement,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Tuesday.
Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner will also participate in the talks between Witkoff and Putin, Peskov said.
The details of the revamped peace plan have not been released. An original proposal approved by Trump last month was seen as heavily biased toward Russia, and would have forced Kyiv to cede its territories to Moscow, including the land that it currently controls. It would have limited the size of Kyiv’s army and barred Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
The proposal blindsided Kyiv, which launched a storm of negotiations in Europe and the U.S. to try to amend the plan and make it more palatable to Ukraine.
Putin invaded Ukraine in February 2022 in what has become Europe’s largest conflict since World War II. Despite Russia expecting Ukraine to surrender in a matter of days, the war has dragged on. The Ukrainian army, backed by Western weapons, has managed to not only resist the onslaught, but also counterattack. Still, Russian forcess are now in control of roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory.
Any resolution that the U.S. manages to broker could shape the future of not just Ukraine, but also the entire continent by either aligning with Russia and rewarding aggression, or backing Ukraine and the security structure currently in place.
Ahead of Putin’s meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, some Muscovites expressed hope for an agreement and peace.
“Everyone is tired of this,” Igor Andreev, 39, told NBC News in central Moscow, standing on a street opposite the U.S. Embassy. “I can’t afford many products,” said Andreev, who works in marketing. “We are in isolation, I can’t go to another country. Everyone is tired of this situation. I think it needs to end in peace. Everyone is tired of [hearing about] victims. We want love to prevail.”
Sidelined by Washington, Europe has been scrambling to respond to Trump’s peace proposals. Its efforts have not been sufficient to turn around Ukraine’s fortunes on the battlefield, although it has increased its aid to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s beleaguered government.
As focus shifts to talks in Moscow, Zelenskyy has been on a visible diplomatic offensive in Europe as he struggles to boost backing for Ukraine.
Putin signaled last week that he was ready for a “serious” discussion with the U.S. and said that a version of the plan that was agreed during talks with Ukrainian officials in Geneva last month could form the “framework” of a final peace settlement. Still, he said his army had the upper hand on the battlefield and if no agreement was reached, he would get what he wanted by force.
Wearing a military uniform, Putin received reports from his generals Monday that Russian troops have completely “liberated” the city of Pokrovsk, an important Ukrainian transport and supply hub in the Donetsk region. Ukraine denied reports that the city was entirely under Russian control. Pokrovsk’s capture could serve as a springboard for the Russian military to threaten bigger cities and the whole region.
It comes as Zelenskyy’s government has been weakened by a major corruption scandal. His powerful chief of staff and top negotiator, Andriy Yermak, resigned last week after being implicated in the probe.