Hours after the Russian president threatened to go to war with Europe, a senior assistant to Vladimir Putin stated that Russia and the US did not advance toward a peace agreement for Ukraine during their discussions.
In remarks to Russian media, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov stated that after a five-hour meeting with Trump ambassador Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the two sides were “neither further nor closer to resolving the crisis in Ukraine. There is a lot of work to be done.”
Ushakov termed the discussion “extremely useful, constructive, and informed”, but yet stated the two sides had not come to an agreement on crucial matters, including the potential lines territorial authority in potential peace settlement between Russia and Ukraine.

Regarding the US side's peace plan, Ushakov stated, "We did not discuss... specific American proposals, but discussed the essence of what is embedded in these American documents." “We could agree with some things … Additionally, the president did not conceal our disapproval of certain plans.
Some details of the conversations will not be publicized, Ushakov said, and he indicated that another summit between Trump and Putin was not imminent.Later, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that security guarantees had made "some progress." Rubio told Fox News, "What we have tried to do, and I think we have made some progress, is figure out what could the Ukrainians live with that gives them security guarantees for the future." The US believed a settlement would enable them "not just to rebuild their economy, but to prosper as a country," he continued.
The relatively downbeat assessments of Tuesday night’s diplomacy follows combative opening statements from Putin as Witkoff and Kushnerarrived for talks at the Kremlin, in which he accused European powers of sabotaging peace in Ukraine and that “European demands” on ending the war were “not acceptable to Russia”.

Putin did not define which European demands he deemed objectionable.
“They are on the side of war,” Putin declared of European powers.
On his sixth visit to Moscow this year, Witkoff was supposed to give Putin a revised version of a US peace proposal that had been revised to make it more palatable to Kyiv after receiving feedback from a senior Russian official.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he was “awaiting signals” from the US team following its meeting with Putin, in an intense round of shuttle diplomacy that the Trump administration has claimed is its greatest opportunity yet of bringing an end to the war.

However, there is still a great deal of doubt that Russia is willing to make any compromises rather than carry on with the conflict and wait for the Trump White House's relations with its European allies to further deteriorate.
Zelenskyy wrote on X, "I am ready to receive all the signals and ready for a meeting with President Trump." “Everything depends on today’s discussions.”
Zelenskyy was scheduled to meet with Witkoff and Kushner in Europe following the meeting, according to a number of US media publications.
Putin was sat next to senior aides Kirill Dmitriev and Yuri Ushakov, while the two small delegations were seated on opposite sides of an oval white table, according to a brief video feed from the Kremlin.

Witkoff described Moscow as a "magnificent city" when Putin questioned him and Kushner about their brief tour of the city before to the meeting. The feed then cut o
After meeting with Ukrainian officials over the weekend in Florida to discuss changes to the initial 28-point peace proposal, which mainly favored Moscow, the two Trump friends arrived in Moscow on Tuesday.
Zelenskyy, on a diplomatic push to rally support among European capitals that have backed adjustments to the original plan, said in Paris that the modified version of the proposal “looks better” but emphasized it was “not over yet”.

Zelenskyy has opposed in particular to sections in the 28-point plan that would have required Ukraine to surrender land in the east that it now holds, and set limits on the size of its military. He has also requested concrete, enforceable security guarantees from the west to avert a future Russian invasion.
Putin, for his part, has maintained that only the original US plan could serve as a basis for further discussions, while simultaneously saying that it required considerable adjustments.
Despite extensive shuttle diplomacy in recent weeks, which has generated many amendments to the US peace proposal, bridging the gap remains difficult: Russia’s maximalist demands in effect necessitate Ukraine’s capitulation.

Speaking at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Trump described the conflict in Ukraine as a "mess" that would be difficult to end.
Putin's remarks seemed to be intended to strain relations between Washington and the capitals of Europe. European officials have had some success in pushing back against the original US plan, though it remains unclear to what extent Washington is taking their concerns into account.
Earlier on Tuesday, Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Kremlin, stated that Putin and Witkoff would talk about the new "understandings" between Washington and Kyiv. He added that while Russia was still open to discussions, it would insist on accomplishing the objectives of its "special operation."

Those aims amount to comprehensive demands that would seriously impair Ukraine’s sovereignty, including deep cuts to its armed forces, a restriction on western military support, far-reaching limits on political freedom, and the turnover of Ukrainian-controlled land in the east of the country.
Putin asserted that Russian forces had seized control of the vital Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on the eve of negotiations with the US team in Moscow.
The Russian president praised the "important" conquest of Pokrovsk, which was formerly a key logistical hub for the Ukrainian army, while wearing military fatigues during a visit to a command center on Monday night. However, Ukrainian officials later refuted the assertion.

Russia has sustained significant losses in its more than year-long battle to take control of the frontline hub, which is thought to be a doorway to Donetsk.
Ukrainian academics and military bloggers have admitted that Russia currently has most of Pokrovsk, with battlefield maps showing its soldiers largely in charge.
Buoyed up by recent successes at the front, Putin has hinted in recent weeks that the Russian military was prepared to resume fighting if diplomacy faltered, consistently underlining that his forces remained on the offensive on the battlefield.
The Russian leader also on Tuesday warned revenge against Ukraine’s ports and cargo after Kyiv in recent days struck three vessels in Russia’s so-called shadow navy in the Black Sea.Echoing the Kremlin, Russian state media on Tuesday set an optimistic tone before the US visit. The president's comments implied that "more and more Ukrainian territory is coming under our control – and that next time Russia's terms may be tougher," according to Komsomolskaya Pravda, which is sometimes referred to as "Putin's favorite newspaper."
According to the report, Moscow saw the most recent US-Ukrainian negotiations as a dead end because Kyiv was refusing to give in. “The US has tried for the third time in the past 10 days to pressure Ukraine, and Washington has once again failed,” it said.