Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace after talks with US
envoys
[December 04, 2025]
By LORNE COOK and ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — 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.”
The remarks reflected the high tensions and gaping gulf 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 neighbor 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.
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 he wouldn’t release any
details.
Witkoff and Kushner are set to meet with Ukraine's lead negotiator,
Rustem Umerov, on Thursday in Miami for further talks, according to a
senior Trump administration official who was not authorized to comment
publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Trump said Witkoff and Kushner came away from their marathon session
with Putin confident that he wants to find an end to the war. “Their
impression was very strongly that he’d like to make a deal," Trump said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said “the world clearly feels
that the possibility of ending the war exists.”
In comments from his evening address posted on Telegram, Zelenskyy said
the effort depends on “constructive diplomacy plus pressure on the
aggressor. Both components work towards peace.”
Unclear where peace talks go now
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.
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 nonstarters.
Many European leaders worry that if Putin gets what he wants in Ukraine,
he 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.
The Russian and American sides agreed Tuesday not to disclose the
substance of their Kremlin talks, but at least one major hurdle to a
settlement remains — the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia partially
occupies and claims as its own.
After the talks, Ushakov told reporters that “so far, a compromise
hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which 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 the 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.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin attends an international forum of
civil participation "We Are Together" in Moscow, Russia, Wednesday,
Dec. 3, 2025. (Alexander Shcherbak, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via
AP)
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday it was “not correct”
to say that Putin had rejected the U.S. peace plan. He declined to
elaborate 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 Wednesday in
Brussels, 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 said.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners will keep
supplying 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.
Canada, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands announced they will
spend hundreds of millions of dollars more together to buy U.S.
weapons to donate to Ukraine.
Unlike the Biden administration, the Trump administration has not
approved donations of weapons to Ukraine. Instead, it has sold them
directly to Kyiv or to NATO allies that give them to Ukraine.
The war claims more lives
Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a grim war of attrition on the
battlefield and are using drones and missiles for long-range strikes
behind the front line. Many analysts have noted that the slow slog
favors Russia's larger military, especially if disagreements between
Europe and the U.S. or among Europeans hampers weapons delivery to
Ukraine.
Russian drones hit the town of Ternivka in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk
region, killing two people and wounding three more, according to the
head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.
Two people were in critical condition, he said, after the attack
destroyed a house and damaged six more.
Overall, Russia fired 111 strike and decoy drones overnight,
Ukraine’s air force said.
Meanwhile, the Russian Defense Ministry said it destroyed 102
Ukrainian drones overnight.
Falling drone debris sparked a fire at an oil depot in the Tambov
region, about 200 kilometers (120 miles) south of Moscow, Gov.
Yegveniy Pervyshov said.
___
Cook reported from Brussels. Aamer Madhani in Washington
contributed.
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