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Ukraine and its European allies accused Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.
The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”
Speaking from Brussels Wednesday, Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand reiterated that Ukraine must be at the table for the peace talks.
“Canada stands firmly with Ukraine in the short and the long term,” Anand said, pointing to Canada’s spending on more than $200 million on military equipment for the country.
The remarks reflect the high tensions and gaping gulf that remain between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbour nearly four years ago.
A day earlier, Putin accused the Europeans of sabotaging the U.S.-led peace efforts — and warned that, if provoked, Russia would be ready for war with Europe.
Since the 2022 invasion, European governments, along with the U.S., have spent billions of dollars to support Kyiv financially and militarily. Under President Donald Trump, however, the U.S. has tempered its support — and instead made a push to end the war.
Ahead of a meeting to discuss the U.S. proposal for peace in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin dismissed European counter-proposals as ‘unacceptable’ and said his country was ready for war if Europe wants one.
Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, said Tuesday’s talks at the Kremlin between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner were “positive” but wouldn’t release any details.
Where the peace talks go from here depends largely on whether the Trump administration decides to increase the pressure on Russia or on Ukraine to make concessions.
Unclear where peace talks go now
A U.S. peace proposal that became public last month was criticized for being tilted heavily toward Moscow because it granted some of the Kremlin’s core demands that Kyiv has rejected as non-starters.
Many European leaders worry that if Russia gets what it wants in Ukraine, it will have free rein to threaten their countries, which already have faced incursions from Russian drones and fighter jets, and an alleged widespread sabotage campaign.
Putin met Tuesday in Moscow with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Russian and American sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the talks, but at least one major hurdle to a settlement — the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia partially seized and occupies and claims as its own — remains.
After the talks, Ushakov told reporters that “so far, a compromise hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which, he said, the Kremlin sees “no resolution to the crisis.”
Ukraine has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has captured.
Asked whether peace was closer or further away after these talks, Ushakov said: “Not further, that’s for sure.”
“But there’s still a lot of work to be done, both in Washington and in Moscow,” he said.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that it was “not correct” to say that Putin had rejected the U.S. peace plan. He declined to comment further on the talks.
“We’re deliberately not going to add anything,” he said. “It’s understood that the quieter these negotiations are conducted, the more productive they will be.”
Europeans step up assistance for Ukraine
Foreign ministers from European NATO countries, meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, showed little patience with Moscow.
“What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. “It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”
Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen struck the same note. “So far, we haven’t seen any concessions from the side of the aggressor, which is Russia, and I think the best confidence-building measure would be to start with a full ceasefire,” she told reporters.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, speaking from Brussels on Tuesday about Ukraine and the state of peace talks, said at this moment there is ‘no consensus’ from all allies on Ukraine joining the intergovernmental military alliance.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners will keep sending it military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.
“The peace talks are ongoing. That’s good,” Rutte said.
“But at the same time, we have to make sure that whilst they take place and we are not sure when they will end, that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going, to fight back against the Russians,” he said.
