By DASHA LITVINOVA, Associated Press
Russian President Vladimir Putin says that some proposals in a U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine are unacceptable to the Kremlin, indicating that any deal is still some way off despite intense shuttle diplomacy by American envoys.
U.S. President Donald Trump has set in motion the most intense diplomatic push to stop the fighting since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor nearly four years ago. But the peace efforts have once again run into demands that are hard to reconcile, especially over whether Ukraine must give up land to Russia and how it can be kept safe from any future Russian aggression.
Putin said in comments published Thursday that his five-hour talks with U.S. envoys this week were “necessary” and “useful,” but also “difficult work.” Some of the proposals were unacceptable to the Kremlin, he said.
Meanwhile, Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner, are set to meet with Ukraine’s lead negotiator, Rustem Umerov, on Thursday in Miami for further talks, according to a senior Trump administration official who wasn’t authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Putin spoke to the India Today TV channel before his visit to New Delhi on Thursday. Before the full interview was broadcast, Russian state news agencies Tass and RIA Novosti quoted some of Putin’s remarks in it.
Tass quoted Putin as saying in the interview that at the talks in the Kremlin on Tuesday, the sides “had to go through each point” of the U.S. peace proposal, “which is why it took so long.”
“This was a necessary conversation, a very concrete one,” the Russian president said.
There were provisions that Moscow said it was ready to discuss, while others “we can’t agree to,” Putin said, adding “it’s difficult work.”
Trump said Wednesday that Witkoff and Kushner came away from their marathon session confident that he wants to find an end to the war.
“Their impression was very strongly that he’d like to make a deal,” Trump said.
Putin refused to go into details as to what Russia could agree to and what it finds unacceptable. None of the officials involved in the negotiations has offered details of the talks.
“I think it is premature. Because it could simply disrupt the working regime” of the peace effort, Tass quoted Putin as saying.
European leaders, left on the sidelines by Washington as U.S. officials engage directly with Moscow and Kyiv, have accused Putin of feigning interest in Trump’s peace drive.
Russian barrages of civilian areas of Ukraine continued overnight into Thursday. A ballistic missile struck Kryvyi Rih on Wednesday night, wounding six people, including a 3-year-old girl, according to city administration head Oleksandr Vilkul.
He said that the strike damaged more than 40 residential buildings, a school and domestic gas pipes in the city, which is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown.
A 6-year-old girl died in Kherson, a southern port city, after Russian artillery shelling wounded her the previous day.
“Doctors fought until the very end to save her life, but her injuries were too severe,” regional military administration chief Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
Russia also struck Odesa with drones, wounding six people, while civilian and energy infrastructure was damaged, said Oleh Kiper, the head of the regional military administration.
Overall, Russia fired two ballistic missiles and 138 drones of various types at Ukraine overnight, officials said.
Meanwhile, in the Russia-occupied part of Ukraine’s Kherson region, two men were killed by a Ukrainian drone strike on their vehicle Thursday, Moscow-installed regional leader Vladimir Saldo said.
A 68-year-old woman was also wounded in the attack, he said.
Aamer Madhani contributed to this report from Washington.
