The President of Russia remained adamant today in the maximistic demands to end the war in Ukraine during a meeting in Moscow with the emissaries of the American counterpart, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
© Lusa
12/11/2026
by
Lusa
O President of Russia today remained adamant in the maximistic demands to end the war in Ukraine during a meeting in Moscow with the emissaries of the American counterpart, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Vladimir Putin was reunited for more than two hours with Donald Trump's emissaries after the tripartite negotiations of Tuesday and Wednesday in Abu Dhabi.
Witkoff and Kushner are still expected in Dublin today to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Moscow promotes discussions focused on the issue of European security, according to the ‘Yalta and Potsdam’ model, the 1945 conferences between the Soviet Union and the Western powers on the sharing of post-war Europe.
Kiev and the European allies are opposed to redistribution of the areas of influence between the United States, Russia and China, and want to end the war that has lasted for almost five years as the first objective of the negotiations.
Zelensky stated on Wednesday, on arrival in Dublin, that there could be a “window of opportunity” for a ceasefire before 2027.
However, Putin reiterated to US envoys Russia's demands on the territories whose annexation he claims, according to the French agency AFP.
He also reaffirmed that any mobilization of foreign troops in Ukraine would mean “the continuation of the war.”.
Kushner stated that one of the objectives of the meeting was to obtain Putin's endorsement for European representatives to join the negotiations, said the US agency AP.
The United States and Zelensky want Europe to appoint a single person to negotiate with Moscow, but Russia does not want Europeans to be involved in direct negotiations.
Moscow argues that Europe finances and supplies arms to Ukraine, while Europeans are concerned about Russia's broader conduct and intentions on the continent.
In a long exchange of words with Trump’s envoys broadcast on Russian television – something rare, according to AFP – Putin rejected any possibility of establishing “grey zones” or demilitarized around the front line.
Russia currently occupies just over 19% of Ukraine's territory and has claimed since 2022 the annexation, rejected by Kiev and the international community, of four Ukrainian regions that it does not fully control: Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporijia and Kherson.
Putin qualified as “absolutely unacceptable” the possibility of mobilizing foreign troops in Ukraine, requested by Kiev as a security guarantee against the resumption of the conflict.
“ Do Europeans know this and what we hear? That after the conclusion of peace, they will immediately send troops to Ukrainian territory,” he said.
The US envoys, however, called for Europeans to be included in the negotiations.
“If we choose a multilateral format, we can continue to progress towards solving the problems,” Kushner argued.
Putin also proposed the organisation of a humanitarian operation in the Ukrainian city of Kostiantynivka, at the centre of the fighting in the Donetsk region (east).
“Let’s do something similar to what we did” in Oleshky, he suggested, quoting the Ukrainian city under Russian control in the Kherson region where a humanitarian operation supported by the First Lady of the United States, Melania Trump, recently took place.
During the direct discussions in Abu Dhabi, the first in more than eight months, Russians and Ukrainians agreed to a new exchange of prisoners, whose number was not disclosed.
In parallel, Russia continued the attacks against Ukraine, making one dead in Kiev overnight.
In St. Petersburg, northwestern Russia, a Russian military officer died today in the explosion of a vehicle whose origin remains undetermined
The Russian offensive in Ukraine, launched in February 2022, devastated the country and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths on both sides, becoming the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II (1939–1945).