After US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks in Moscow with Russian president Vladimir Putin, the Kremlin announced that there had been “no further progress” toward ending the war in Ukraine, with no breakthrough on core issues. Senior Kremlin official Yuri Ushakov said that as the details of the negotiations remain undisclosed, substantial progress was limited — especially with no sign of compromise on territorial matters.
Before the meeting, Putin issued a stern warning to Europe, saying that if Europe “seeks war,” Russia is “ready,” and he criticised Europe’s counterproposals as “completely unacceptable.” These counterproposals were made in response to the “updated peace framework” that the US and Ukraine presented in Geneva last week. A previously leaked package of “28 US proposals” had called for Ukraine to make territorial concessions, sparking strong backlash from Europe and Kyiv.
The Trump administration has made several attempts in recent months to push for negotiations, including a Putin–Trump summit in Alaska in August and talks with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy, but none have produced meaningful progress. Zelenskiy has insisted that Ukraine needs a “peace with dignity” and reiterated that Russian aggression must not be rewarded.
On the battlefield, Putin claimed that Russian forces had captured the strategic eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, though this claim has not been independently verified. The UK Foreign Office estimates that nearly 100,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the surrounding area over the past year. The city, which had a prewar population of around 60,000, has long been regarded as a key logistics hub for Ukrainian forces and is now largely reduced to ruins and empty buildings.