“I am very glad to see you.” Putin welcomes Trump envoys Witkoff and Kushner to Kremlin to discuss US peace plan in Ukraine

Russian President Vladimir Putin met in the Kremlin on Tuesday with US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss a possible solution to end Europe's bloodiest conflict since the end of World War II, writes Reuters.

Even before the meeting, Putin warned Europe that it would suffer a quick defeat if it went to war with Russia and rejected European counter-proposals for peace in Ukraine, considering them totally unacceptable to Russia.

Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the war, but his efforts so far, including a summit with Putin in Alaska in August and meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, have yet to bring peace.

A series of 28 preliminary Washington peace proposals were leaked last week, alarming Ukrainian and European officials. Officials said the proposals bow to Moscow's main demands that Kiev not join NATO, Russian control of a fifth of Ukraine's territory and restrictions on the Ukrainian military.

European powers then came up with a counter-proposal, and at the Geneva talks, the United States and Ukraine announced they had created an “updated and refined peace framework” to end the war.

“I'm very glad to see you,” Putin told Witkoff and Kushner when they met in the Kremlin on Tuesday night.

“It's a magnificent city,” Witkoff told Putin after the US envoy earlier walked with Jared Kushner and the Russian leader's envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Red Square near the mausoleum of Soviet state founder Vladimir Lenin.

Dmitriev and Putin adviser Yuri Ushakov also attended the Kremlin meeting, accompanied by translators.

Putin accuses the Europeans of trying to block peace

Even before the Kremlin meeting, Putin accused Europe of trying to undermine Trump's peace efforts by making proposals he knows Moscow will find unacceptable.

“They are on the side of war,” Putin said of the European powers. “We can clearly see that all these changes have only one goal: to block the entire peace process, to make demands that are absolutely unacceptable for Russia,” the Russian president said.

“If Europe suddenly wants to start a war with us and starts it,” Putin said, then the conflict would end so quickly that Russia would have no one to negotiate with.

Putin has also threatened to cut off Ukraine's access to the sea in response to drone attacks on oil tankers by Russia's “ghost fleet” in the Black Sea. Ukraine's foreign minister, Andrii Sîbiga, said Putin's remark showed the Kremlin leader was not ready to end the war.

Russian forces now control about 19 percent of Ukraine, or 115,600 square km (45,000 square miles), just one percentage point more than two years ago, although they advanced in 2025 at the fastest pace since 2022, according to pro-Ukrainian maps.

But after nearly four years of war, Russia has failed to conquer Ukraine, a much smaller neighboring country that has been backed by European powers and the United States.

President Zelensky, speaking in Dublin, said that everything would depend on the talks in Moscow.

“There will be no easy solutions… It is important that everything is fair and open so that there are no games behind Ukraine's back,” the Ukrainian leader said.

Putin sees basis for 'future deals'

Putin said the talks so far were not about a draft agreement, but a series of proposals that, according to his statement last week, “could form the basis for future agreements.”

The Kremlin leader also said he was ready to discuss peace, but that if Ukraine refused a deal, Russian forces would advance and occupy even more Ukrainian territory.

A Russian source said the Trump administration's attempts to secure peace represent the best chance to end the war since negotiations with Kiev broke down shortly after Moscow's February 2022 invasion.

The conflict first erupted in eastern Ukraine (Donbas) in 2014 after a pro-Russian president was overthrown in Ukraine's Maidan Revolution. Russia has annexed the Crimean peninsula, and Moscow-backed separatists have been fighting Kiev's armed forces in eastern Ukraine.

Putin, in a video broadcast on the eve of Witkoff's visit, welcomed the announcement by his military commanders, who said their troops' capture of Pokrovsk, in the Donetsk region, was an important victory after a long campaign.

The Ukrainian military told Reuters that its forces were still in control of the northern part of the city and had attacked Russian troops in southern Pokrovsk.

American officials estimated the war's toll at more than 1.2 million dead and wounded in total. Neither Ukraine nor Russia discloses the losses suffered. The conflict also caused widespread destruction in Ukrainian cities and forced many people to flee their homes.

Since preliminary US proposals emerged last month, European powers have sought to back Ukraine against what they see as a punitive peace deal that could open Russia to US investment in oil, gas and rare metals and bring Moscow back into the G8.

Russia's main demands include a commitment by Ukraine to never join NATO, limitation of the Ukrainian military, Russian control of the entire Donbas (Donetsk and Luhansk regions), recognition of Moscow's control of the Crimea, Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, and protection for Russian speakers in Ukraine.

Ukraine argues that these demands would amount to a capitulation and leave it vulnerable to a possible takeover by Russia, although Washington has also proposed a 10-year security guarantee for Kiev.

Ukraine and European powers see the war as an imperialist land grab by Moscow and have warned that if Russia wins, it will one day attack NATO members. Zelensky argues that Russia should not be rewarded for the war it started.