Putin hosts Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow; Kremlin calls talks 'constructive' and agrees to plan a Kostiantynivka humanitarian mission

Russian President Vladimir Putin met US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow on Thursday, November 12, and the Kremlin described the talks as “substantive, constructive, frank and useful”. Both sides said trilateral contacts with Ukraine will continue. The two envoys had arrived in the morning from Abu Dhabi, where Russia, Ukraine and the United States held their first three-way talks since February.

Witkoff told reporters that “progress was made today” and that the resumption of trilateral negotiations was “what President Trump wants to see”. Kushner said Washington sees “certain shifts on the European side” and hopes to bring Europe into a multilateral format. The substance of any settlement on territory was not reported.

What the Kremlin said

Yury Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy aide, briefed Russian media after the meeting. According to his account, the envoys backed Putin’s proposal for a humanitarian mission in Kostiantynivka, the Donetsk town Russia says it controls, and the sides agreed to start contacts on organising it. Putin has pointed to the Oleshky ceasefire, under which trapped civilians were evacuated last month, as the model; we reported on that earlier.

Ushakov said Russia and the United States agreed to continue trilateral negotiations, though no date or venue for the next round has been announced. Moscow, he added, hopes Witkoff and Kushner will pass on Russian signals to Europeans and Ukrainians when they meet them in Dublin.

Putin also discussed with the envoys Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s conduct and his “greetings” to Donald Trump; the reports do not say what those greetings were. According to Ushakov, Putin reminded the envoys of Russia’s 2021 proposals for a new security architecture and said Moscow would add considerations reflecting “the lessons of the confrontation with the West”. He said the current global security system is not working.

Europe’s seat at the table

Europe was the recurring subject. Putin told the envoys that Russia never refused to talk to Europe, but that Europe “ceased the dialogue with Russia”, and said Europeans should “figure out” whether they want peace or war. Ushakov said Europe has not yet agreed on a suitable negotiator. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Putin would set out Russia’s position, after which Washington should work to bring its European partners around.

Kushner has argued that Europe should take part through a single representative. Moscow says it will consider concrete European proposals but says it has received none. In Abu Dhabi, European representatives attended but did not sit in the Russia-Ukraine sessions.

How we got here

The Abu Dhabi round opened on Tuesday, November 10, and ended on Wednesday, November 11 with a large exchange of prisoners agreed, as we reported in our account of the close of the talks. Kushner called territory the hardest issue, and Zelenskyy has rejected pulling Ukrainian forces out of the Donbas. Earlier that week Zelenskyy said Russian delegates had claimed about half of the Donbas land Kyiv holds, a claim Kyiv rejected. The numbers for the swap were due to be settled on Thursday; none had been published when the Moscow talks ended.

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s investment envoy, met the Americans at Vnukovo airport and described their mood as positive. Moscow’s delegation head in Abu Dhabi, Vladimir Medinsky, had said the day before that understandings were reached on some issues and not others.

Why it matters

For families of prisoners and civilians in frontline towns, the two concrete items, the swap and the Kostiantynivka mission, are the ones that can change lives within days. A humanitarian corridor of the Oleshky kind would mean an evacuation of residents from a town under fire, if Kyiv agrees to it; the reports read do not say whether Ukraine has been consulted.

For the wider world, including India, the war’s risks to Black Sea food shipping and to energy infrastructure remain unaddressed in anything announced on Thursday. The Moscow meeting also shows the diplomatic track now runs through three capitals, with the US carrying messages between them while Europe argues over who speaks for it.

What happens next

Witkoff and Kushner are due in Dublin to brief Zelenskyy, and no date has been announced for that meeting. Moscow says it hopes the Americans will carry Russian signals to Europeans and Ukrainians there. Ushakov also said Putin and Trump may take up the full range of Ukraine settlement issues at their planned meeting in China, and that Moscow hopes a Russia-US-China leaders’ meeting will affect the wider international situation.