Explicit threats to the European Union and almost five hours of negotiations without making any progress towards peace in Ukraine. “There is still a lot of work,” acknowledged Vladimir Putin‘s international policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, after concluding this Tuesday night the meeting in Moscow between the Russian president and the White House special envoy, Steve Witkoff, in which they discussed the new plan of the American president, Donald Trump, to end the ukrainian war. Hours earlier, Putin sent a warning to the rest of Europe: the leader believes that Russia is prepared for a war with the community bloc “right now.”
“No agreement has yet been reached and no meeting between the leaders of Russia and the United States is planned,” the Russian diplomat acknowledged. According to Moscow, Witkoff carried with him five peace proposals, including the draft that Washington and kyiv authorities agreed on in Geneva last week and the original 28-point American plan that satisfied many of the Kremlin’s demands and left Ukraine on the verge of capitulation, although this time with one point less, 27, according to the Kremlin.
“Russia is willing to consider some of the United States’ ideas on Ukraine, but several proposals have drawn harsh criticism,” Ushakov said after pointing out that Moscow “could accept some aspects of the American plan for Ukraine.”
Putin’s adviser has maintained that both sides addressed “some territorial issues” at the meeting. Trump’s original plan contemplated the handover of Donbas (the provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk), an idea that disappeared in the draft later agreed with kyiv.
Moscow doesn’t seem willing to give in. Putin has said before receiving Trump’s envoy that he is prepared for a war with Europe “from now on” and has claimed even more territories from Ukraine. The president of Russia has ordered his high command to create a “security zone” along the entire border with Ukraine.
The meeting started with Putin humiliating Witkoff. The Kremlin had announced that the meeting would begin at 5:00 p.m. in Moscow (3:00 p.m. in mainland Spain), but after several minutes the Russian leader appeared at a forum organized by the BTV bank. Finally, he arrived at the meeting with the American envoy at 7:40 p.m., almost three hours after the scheduled time.
This is the second time that Putin has made Witkoff wait in this way: the previous one, in March, when the American businessman traveled to Moscow to discuss with the Russian leader a 30-day ceasefire that never took place. On that occasion, Putin improvised a meeting with the Belarusian president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, that same day. The American envoy then had to wait eight hours.
Putin has threatened both kyiv and the European Union during his speech at the forum. These days Ukraine has attacked at least four oil tankers of the ghost fleet with which Moscow evades sanctions, and the Russian president has warned that he will consider both “taking retaliatory measures against the ships of countries that help Ukraine” and cutting off Ukraine’s access to the Black Sea. This would imply a Russian advance to Odesa, an objective that it already tried to take in 2022 and which the Kremlin never renounced.
“Russia has no intention of going to war with Europe, but if the European Union wants it, it is prepared right now. Although in that case there will soon be no one left to negotiate with,” Putin added to his bravado. Furthermore, the president has reiterated that he will only agree to negotiate with the parties that recognize all of the occupied territory as Russian.
“Europe will only be able to return to the negotiating table if it recognizes the reality on the ground,” Putin said, after stating that European leaders “are presenting proposals for the Ukrainian peace plan that are unacceptable to Russia.”
Rubio, the great absentee
The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has been the big absentee from this important meeting this Tuesday. Witkoff, a billionaire real estate developer turned White House special envoy for his friendship with Trumphas traveled to Moscow for the sixth time this year accompanied by Jared Kushner, son-in-law of the American president. Without any experience as a diplomat – in an interview he has even forgotten the name of the Ukrainian regions for which he negotiates – kyiv accuses Witkoff of buying Putin’s Russian narrative.
This businessman has proven to be more tractable to the Kremlin than Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg. This veteran diplomat, familiar with Eastern Europe, was vetoed by Moscow in his negotiations and has announced his departure in January 2026.
Witkoff, however, has advised the Kremlin on how to flatter Trump in the negotiations, according to the leak of his conversations with Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev. From those conversations emerged the first draft of Trump’s peace plan.
During his Tuesday meeting with Putin, Witkoff extracted a promise from the Kremlin that Russia would not reveal the content of the meeting.
The Kremlin wants more territory
On the eve of his meeting with Witkoff, Putin has staged the supposed conquest of Pokrovsk, a city in the Donetsk region that the Kremlin has been trying to take since February 2024 at the cost of countless casualties. However, Ukraine has denied its fall and claims that it controls the northern part of the town, from where it attacks Russian forces in the southern area.
A video released by the Kremlin this Monday showed the Russian leader dressed as a military man along with the chief of his General Staff, Valeri Gerasimov, in a supposed command center. During the meeting, the general announced to his leader “the liberation of Krasnoarmiisk [el nombre soviético de Pokrovsk] and Vovchansk.” Likewise, the Russian Ministry of Defense published a short recording in which two soldiers posed running with their flag in the center of a devastated city.
Putin ordered Gerasimov to create “a security zone along the border with Ukraine” during their meeting. This instruction, which is not new, would imply advancing in all Ukrainian provinces that border both the Russian Federation – specifically the regions of Kharkiv, Sumi and Chernigov – and its occupied territories with the excuse of keeping Ukrainian forces away.
The mere proposal of this “security zone” contradicts the supposed Russian intention of limiting itself to asking for international recognition of its occupation of the Crimean peninsula (illegally annexed since 2014) and the eastern provinces of Donetsk and Lugansk. And it raises another question: how far Putin would advance this “security zone” if he considers each new territory he conquers his own.
Political scientist Tatiana Stanovaya, founder of the Rpolitik analysis center, warns on her Telegram channel: “Listening to this, it comes to mind how far all negotiators (non-Russian, of course) are from understanding all of the Kremlin’s demands. What is being negotiated now and perceived as maximalist demands is just the tip of the iceberg.”
