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Russian President Vladimir Putin showed no willingness to moderate his core demands during talks this week with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, according to a Reuters report on the Kremlin meeting held November 12. The Russian leader agreed to allow European representatives to join future rounds of negotiations but pressed Washington to determine whether its allies sought peace or continued conflict in Ukraine. A Kremlin aide told Reuters that Moscow would consider expanded talks only once it was satisfied that European parties demonstrated genuine readiness to contribute to a settlement rather than prolong the war.
Putin has insisted that the state border of Russia must serve as the sole line of demarcation with Ukraine, a position that effectively requires Kyiv to cede the remaining portions of Donetsk and Luhansk regions it still controls, Reuters figures show. An Associated Press review of Russian negotiating positions listed additional requirements that include Ukrainian neutrality precluding NATO membership, a reduction in the size of Ukraine’s armed forces, and the lifting of restrictions on the Russian language and a Moscow-linked Orthodox Church branch. The AP assessment found these terms have remained consistent since earlier rounds of US-mediated discussions, with little sign of flexibility from the Russian side.
A separate security zone that Russian forces are carving inside Ukrainian territory along the border has been declared non-negotiable in any talks, according to statements Putin made in October that Reuters reported at the time. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Reuters the planned buffer would span 660 kilometres, of which 70 percent was already under Russian control, though he did not specify its depth into Sumy and Kharkiv regions. Putin described the zone as essential for the long-term protection of Russian border areas and stated it would not be placed on the negotiating table.
BBC News correspondent Steve Rosenberg, reporting from Moscow on November 13, characterised Putin’s approach as uncompromising and noted that the Kremlin had dusted off its December 2021 draft treaties with the United States and NATO. Those proposals, which Western governments had rejected as an ultimatum before the full-scale invasion, called for legally binding guarantees against further NATO enlargement and the rollback of alliance military infrastructure from central and eastern European member states, Rosenberg wrote. The correspondent observed that Moscow now frames its requirements as the foundation for a new long-term European security architecture of indivisible peace rather than a simple ceasefire.
Russia currently holds roughly one-fifth of Ukrainian territory, including Crimea which it seized in 2014, yet has failed to capture all the land within the four regions it claims to have annexed in 2022, an AP tally from October indicated. Ukrainian officials have rejected any formal or de facto surrender of territory that its forces continue to defend, according to multiple Reuters dispatches from the Abu Dhabi talks that concluded earlier this week. The first such US-brokered trilateral discussions in nine months produced no breakthrough on territorial questions, Reuters reported, with both sides showing only limited private flexibility on possible land exchanges that would be addressed only at the end of broader negotiations.
Kremlin officials have emphasised that future talks must prioritise a postwar security framework for Europe as a whole, an approach a Russian delegation source described to Reuters as the central thrust of the discussions. This framework would address Moscow’s longstanding concerns about NATO military activity in eastern Europe, including the removal of US nuclear weapons from the continent, the source added. US President Donald Trump has pushed for a comprehensive deal that could incorporate European security elements, though public comments from both Russian and Ukrainian sides indicate the gap between their positions remains wide, according to an October Reuters summary of the diplomatic track.
