Russian President Vladimir Putin throughout a gathering on growth of ‘new areas’, annexed from Ukraine, on the Kremlin, June 30, 2025, in Moscow, Russia.
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All eyes at the moment are on Russia’s response to a fledgling peace plan to finish the battle in Ukraine after Kyiv appeared prepared to maneuver ahead with a U.S.-backed framework.
U.S. particular envoy Steve Witkoff is predicted to journey to Moscow subsequent week to fulfill Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov advised reporters Wednesday that “the content material [of the U.S. plan] can be mentioned,” on the assembly, and claimed Russian officers had not mentioned a U.S.-backed plan when talks had been held with U.S. officers in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
“We, the Russian facet, haven’t but mentioned any paperwork with anybody particularly … We have agreed to a gathering with Mr. Witkoff. I hope he will not be alone. Different representatives of the U.S. staff engaged on the Ukrainian file can be there,” he stated in feedback translated by NBC Information and reported by state information company TASS.
Ushakov stated Russia had not but formally obtained the U.S.-backed draft deal for Ukraine however had seen an unofficial model.
Relating to the plan it had seen, Ushakov stated the Kremlin considered some features of the plan positively whereas “a number of of its factors require critical evaluation.”
In the meantime, Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov on Wednesday warned in opposition to leaping to conclusions relating to an finish to the battle, which Russia launched when it invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022.
“Wait. It is too early to say that,” Peskov advised reporters, state information company TASS reported, when requested whether or not this was the closest Russia and Ukraine had ever been to concluding a peace settlement.
CNBC has contacted the Kremlin for additional remark and is awaiting a response.
Ukraine on board, tentatively
A number of shops reported Tuesday {that a} Ukrainian delegation that had held talks with U.S. officers in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday appeared to tentatively assist the premise of a U.S.-backed peace plan — although key particulars remained unresolved.
Reviews from ABC Information and CBS Information each cited an unnamed U.S. official who stated that the Ukrainians “have agreed” to the deal, whereas noting that some factors nonetheless have to be ironed out. It was not clear if the identical U.S. official was quoted in each tales.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated later Tuesday that Kyiv was able to advance the peace framework, Reuters reported, citing a duplicate of a speech the president gave to a coalition of allied international locations.
President Donald Trump stated on the White Home on Tuesday, “I feel we’re getting very near a deal. We’ll discover out … I feel we’re making progress.”
In a Reality Social put up later Tuesday afternoon, Trump stated, “there are just a few remaining factors of disagreement.”
Flurry of talks
Trump’s put up got here a number of days after U.S. officers met with a Ukrainian delegation in Geneva final weekend for talks that resulted in important revisions to Washington’s initially proffered 28-point peace plan.
That plan — which was extensively seen as being extremely favorable to Russia, the invading power — “has been fine-tuned, with extra enter from each side,” Trump acknowledged in Tuesday’s put up.
“Our delegations reached a typical understanding on the core phrases of the settlement mentioned in Geneva,” Ukraine Nationwide Safety Secretary Rustem Umerov stated in an X put up.
It is from sure the Russia will assent to the revised peace plan, which has reportedly been narrowed to 19 factors.
Russian Overseas Minister Sergey Lavrov stated any settlement should replicate the understandings reached by Trump and Putin throughout their August summit in Alaska.
On Tuesday, officers from Kyiv and Moscow reportedly met with Driscoll in Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates.
The Kremlin was tight-lipped concerning the discussions going down there, with Dmitry Peskov telling reporters Tuesday that “we nonetheless don’t have anything to say” and that the Kremlin was “monitoring media reviews.”
“We perceive that negotiations between the People and the Ukrainians are ongoing. We perceive that some changes are being made to the textual content that was revealed; we perceive that the textual content that we unofficially obtained earlier has already undergone adjustments, however sooner or later, the time will in all probability come after we will even set up contacts with the People and we are going to formally obtain some info,” Peskov stated. “For now, we have now no new info.”
The preliminary, 28-point plan, which Ukraine had not participated in, included controversial phrases, equivalent to Ukraine making territorial concessions by handing over the jap Donbas area that’s partially occupied by Russian forces.
The unique deal additionally demanded that Ukraine scale back its military by 50%, together with different proposals that crossed Ukraine’s “crimson traces.”
Trump had pushed Ukraine to simply accept that deal by the U.S. Thanksgiving Day vacation on Nov. 27, prompting Zelenskyy to declare on Friday that Ukraine confronted the tough alternative between “shedding its dignity or shedding a key companion,” referring to the U.S.
That deadline seems to have been scrapped. It was unclear how lots of the unique deal’s factors remained within the newest model of a possible peace settlement.