US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner will hold decisive talks today in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin regarding the cessation of the war in Ukraine.
Modern.az reports that Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Witkoff and Kushner's meeting with Putin will take place on Tuesday afternoon.
He refused to discuss Russia's “red lines” and stated that “megaphone diplomacy” was harmful.
The talks in Moscow are regarded as one of the highest-level meetings aimed at ending the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II.
The Trump administration refers to the war as a “blood bath” and a “proxy war,” emphasizing the importance of its swift conclusion. However, steps taken thus far - including the Trump–Putin summit held in Alaska in August have not led to a peace agreement. The 28-point draft peace proposal prepared by the US side and leaked to the press last week caused serious concern in Ukraine and European capitals. European officials expressed their objections to Washington, believing the document was tailored to the Kremlin's main conditions.
Following this, European countries announced their “alternative peace proposals,” and in meetings held in Geneva, the US and Ukraine declared that they had agreed on a “renewed peace framework.”
Putin, in turn, reiterated that Moscow is ready for peace talks, but if Ukraine does not accept the agreement, the Russian army will advance further. Currently, Russian forces control over 19 percent of Ukraine, meaning more than 115,000 square kilometers of territory. In 2025, the advance continued at the fastest pace since 2022. The Russian army informed Putin on Monday that they had seized control of Pokrovsk and Vovchansk.
Since the start of the war, a total of over 1.2 million military personnel on both sides have been killed or wounded. Neither side discloses exact casualty figures.
Russia's main demands include guarantees that Ukraine will never be admitted to NATO, the limitation of the Ukrainian army, the full transfer of Donbas to Russian control, as well as the recognition of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson as Russian territory. Kyiv calls these conditions “capitulation” and states that if accepted, there would be a risk of the country being fully occupied by Russia in the future. The US, in parallel, has offered Kyiv a 10-year security guarantee.
On the eve of the meeting, Witkoff, Kushner, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held talks in Florida with Rustem Umerov, Secretary of Ukraine's Security Council. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on the X platform after the meeting in Paris: “We share a common position on the necessity of a just end to the war.”
The world's attention is focused precisely on that meeting; these talks, according to speculation, could be the first real diplomatic attempt to determine the future of the war.
It should be recalled that Russia deployed troops to Ukraine in February 2022. The roots of the conflict, however, lie in the Donbas war that began after the Maidan revolution in 2014, the overthrow of Ukraine's pro-Russian president, and the annexation of Crimea.
The outcome of the talks is of critical importance for the entire world, and there is great interest in which direction the process will shift after the parties' meeting in Moscow.
