US envoys arrive in Moscow for talks with Putin

Detailed summary

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, part of their latest push for a peace deal in Ukraine.

US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have arrived in Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, part of their latest push for a peace deal in Ukraine.

The Kremlin talks - expected to take place in the first half of the day - will be the 10th time that Mr Witkoff has met Mr Putin in person, and follow two days of trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi which finished on Wednesday with news of another planned major prisoner exchange but no public breakthrough in wider negotiations.

The two envoys are due to meet Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin later today.

Kirill Dmitriev, Mr Putin's special envoy, met Mr Kushner and Mr Witkoff off their plane amid wet snow and accompanied them to central Moscow ahead of their talks with Putin.

This week's Abu Dhabi talks were the first direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine mediated by the US to try to end the war and, although Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reported some progress, the US side said differences remained on major issues, including territory.

Despite public optimism from US President Trump, there has been no sign of major compromises.

Ukraine has strongly rejected Mr Putin's demands to surrender the whole of the eastern region of Donbas in return for peace, and with talks deadlocked on land, US mediators have tried to steer discussions towards postwar security guarantees and reconstruction.

A senior Russian diplomat said yesterday that Moscow could conclude non-aggression pacts with NATO member states as part of a new security architecture for Europe, though many European politicians say they oppose any discussion of Europe's overall security before real progress on Ukraine - including a ceasefire - is made.

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