Russian President Vladimir Putin said parts of the U.S. peace plan were unacceptable and Russia would take Ukrainian land through military or other means in an interview published Thursday, as Moscow sticks to its demand that Kyiv surrender territory it still holds after nearly four years of fighting.
Excerpts from the interview with India Today, which will be broadcast in full to coincide with Putin’s arrival in India Thursday night, indicate Moscow is holding a hard line in talks on the resolution of the war despite optimistic pronouncements from Washington.
President Donald Trump said late Wednesday that he was unsure what was next in the Ukrainian peace process, even as he described Tuesday’s talks in Moscow between Putin and his peace envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner as “reasonably good.”
“What comes out of that meeting I can’t tell you because it does take two to tango,” Trump said, adding that Witkoff and Kushner believed Putin wanted a deal.
The next phase of the talks will come later Thursday with the arrival of Rustem Umerov, head of the Ukrainian negotiating team, to Miami where he will be meeting with Kushner and Witkoff.
What is not clear, however, is whether Ukraine and Russia are talking about the same versions of the U.S. peace proposal.
After talks late last month between Ukraine and U.S. officials, the original 28-point plan leaked and was widely criticized as pro-Russian. It was then reduced to 19 points, with many sections that were unacceptable to Ukraine removed or set aside to be negotiated between the leaders.
According to Russian state media, however, Putin said in the interview that the U.S. proposal consisted of 28 points (or 27, according to another Russian news agency) and was divided into four documents and based on agreements reached with Trump in August when the two met in Alaska.
That raises questions of whether Putin and Russian officials were talking about the proposal that included the amendments offered by the Ukrainians in the Geneva negotiations on Nov. 23.
Putin said in the interview, according to the Tass news agency, which published excerpts but no direct quotes, that while Russia did not accept some points of the U.S. peace proposals on Ukraine, the negotiations are complex work. He added that it was useful to discuss every point of the plan with Witkoff and Kushner and that is why the meeting took so long.
Putin also said Russia would take Ukrainian territory in the Donetsk region and Novorossiya — a vague term referring to a large swath of southern Ukraine — either by military force or other means. Moscow had offered Kyiv the chance to withdraw its forces from Donbas, but it preferred to fight, he said.
After the talks, Russian officials said no compromises had been found — a sign, according to analysts, that Russia has not significantly shifted its conditions to end the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on a video address Wednesday that pressure must be increased on Russia and that Ukraine’s interests must be respected for the diplomacy to succeed.
“A just peace is only possible if Ukraine’s interests are fully respected,” he said. “Today, the world clearly feels that there is a real opportunity to end the war, and the current diplomatic activity must be reinforced with pressure on Russia. Everything depends on this combination — constructive diplomacy paired with pressure on the aggressor. Both components work in the service of peace.”
He added that there was “constant communication” between Ukraine and its partners over the peace effort.
Before Tuesday’s meeting, Putin sought to minimize Europe’s role in peace discussions, even as a deal impinges directly on European security, insisting that they had “excluded themselves” from the process because they wanted to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia “and, apparently, still live in this illusion.”
He described the Europeans as “on the side of war” and said they were hindering peace by continually inserting proposals that were “completely unacceptable to Russia.”
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, said Wednesday that Russia insisted on international recognition of a future peace agreement on territory and other issues. He said the United States was ready to secure a peace agreement that “meets Russia’s interests.”
Putin also told Indian television that Russia does not want to return to the Group of Seven nations of advanced economies that consists of the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy and Japan. Russia was expelled after its annexation of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014.
Natalia Abbakumova contributed to this report.
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