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US envoy Witkoff and Kushner arrive in Moscow to meet Putin on ending war in Ukraine
Trump has said he wants to end Europe's deadliest conflict since World War Two but his efforts so far, including a summit with Putin in Alaska in August and meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, have not yet brought peace.
A leaked set of
28 U.S. draft peace proposals, opens new tab emerged last week, worrying Ukrainian and European officials who said it bowed to Moscow's main demands on NATO, Moscow's control of a fifth of Ukraine and restrictions on Ukraine's army.
European powers then gave their
counter-proposal for peace and at talks in Geneva, the United States and Ukraine said they had created an "updated and refined peace framework" to end the war.
"Ukraine approaches all diplomatic efforts with utmost seriousness – we are committed to achieving a real peace and guaranteed security,"
Zelenskiy wrote on X on Tuesday. "This is exactly the level of commitment that must be compelled from the Russian side."
Since the U.S. draft proposals emerged late last month, European powers have been trying to bolster Ukraine against what they see as a punitive pro-Russian peace that could open up Russia to U.S. investment in oil, gas and rare earths and return Moscow to the G8.
Key Russian demands include a pledge that Ukraine would never join NATO, caps on the Ukrainian army, Russian control of the whole of Donbas, recognition of Russian control of the regions of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, and protection for Russian speakers and Russian Orthodox believers in Ukraine.
Ukraine says those would amount to capitulation, and leave it prone to eventual conquest by Russia, though the United States has also floated a 10-year security guarantee for Kyiv.
Witkoff,
Kushner, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine's national security council, for talks on Sunday at Witkoff's Shell Bay club near Miami. Putin's investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev will meet Witkoff while he is in Moscow, Russian sources said.
Ukraine and European powers depict the war as an imperial-style land grab by Moscow, and have warned that if Russia wins the war then it will one day attack NATO members. Zelenskiy says Russia must not be rewarded for a war it started.
Russia has denied any plans to attack NATO, as it denied any plan to attack Ukraine before its full-scale invasion.