U.S.-Russia talks productive, advisor says

An aide to Putin calls the conversation ‘useful,’ but work on peace plan remains.

- ASSOCIATED PRESS

ALEXANDER KAZAKOV Kremlin Pool Photo

PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin, center, and other Russian officials meet with U.S. delegates in Moscow.

Talks between Russia and the U.S. on ending the nearly four-year war in Ukraine were productive, but much work remains, Yuri Ushakov, a senior advisor to President Vladimir Putin, told reporters on Wednesday.

Putin met President Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner in the Kremlin in talks that began late Tuesday as part of a renewed push by the Trump administration to broker a peace deal. Both sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the talks.

Ushakov called the five-hour conversation “rather useful, constructive, rather substantive,” but added that the framework of the U.S. peace proposal was discussed rather than “specific wording.”

Putin's aide also said that “go far, a compromise hasn't been found” on the issue of territories, without which, he said, the Kremlin sees “no resolution to the crisis.”

“Some of the American proposals seem more or less acceptable, but they need to be discussed. Some of the wording that was proposed to us doesn't suit us. So, the work will continue,” Ushakov said.

There were other points of disagreement, although Ushakov did not provide further details. “We could agree on some things, and the president confirmed this to his interlocutors. Other things provoked criticism, and the president also didn’t hide our critical and even negative attitude toward a number of proposals,” he said.

Trump peace plan is center of effort

The meeting came days after U.S. officials held talks with a Ukrainian team in Florida and which U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio described in cautiously optimistic terms.