Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov said Wednesday that peace talks in Moscow with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner failed to produce a compromise to end the war in Ukraine, though he called the discussions “useful” and “constructive.”
The nearly five-hour meeting, attended by President Vladimir Putin, was Witkoff’s sixth trip to Russia this year and focused on a revised U.S. peace proposal drafted with input from Ukrainian officials.
That framework had been seen by some as a possible breakthrough, but Ushakov’s cautious tone suggested Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart in negotiations.
“A compromise solution hasn’t been found yet, but some of the ideas the Americans proposed look more or less acceptable, though they still need to be discussed,” Ushakov told reporters. “Some of the wording they suggested doesn’t work for us.”
More bluntly, he said, Russia and Ukraine were “neither further nor closer” to reaching a peace settlement following the talks at the Kremlin on Tuesday. “There is a lot of work to be done,” he added.
Ushakov said the issue of Ukrainian territory remains “the most important” for Moscow, a clear indication that Putin is unlikely to soften his stance on Russia gaining total control of the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces allegedly captured the key city of Pokrovsk over the weekend.
The Kremlin official described the meeting late Tuesday as an opportunity to discuss in detail the prospects for future talks, adding that Witkoff and Kushner “promised” to travel to Kyiv to brief Ukrainian officials.
He said both sides agreed to continue negotiations but offered little on the prospect of a new summit between Trump and Putin. A meeting between the two leaders was originally expected to take place in Hungary in October, but was abruptly canceled after Trump questioned whether high-level talks could yield progress.
“As for a possible meeting at the presidential level, that will depend on the progress we’re able to make through the persistent work carried out by our aides and representatives,” Ushakov said.
He also hinted that Tuesday’s talks covered far more than Ukraine, saying that those present discussed “vast prospects for future economic cooperation” between the U.S. and Russia.
“This had been discussed many times at earlier meetings as well,” Ushakov told reporters. “But this time, we emphasized that if we genuinely want to work together — and there are enormous opportunities — then it’s time to show some real commitment.”
The Moscow Times reported in April that the Kremlin ordered major Russian corporations to prepare proposals for economic cooperation with Washington following Trump’s election last year. According to government and business sources, Moscow has sought to link business deals to Ukraine peace talks as a way to push Trump toward a settlement more favorable to Russia.
Despite the latest flurry of diplomacy, triggered by the leak of an initial 28-point plan drafted by U.S. and reportedly Russian officials, there is little sign that either Moscow or Kyiv has shifted their positions.
Putin said last week that a meeting with Witkoff was necessary to discuss details of the American plan, but in the same breath warned that Russian forces would continue their advance in the Donbas region if Ukraine refused to accept his conditions for a ceasefire.
At the same time, Ukraine has indicated that it is not willing to hand over territory it currently controls to Russia.
Trump initially gave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a hard Thanksgiving deadline to accept the latest U.S. peace plan, but later backed away, a pattern that has become common in his attempts to deliver on his promise to end the war.
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