JAKARTA — Ukrainian and European officials accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with a US envoy in the Kremlin yielded no signs of a breakthrough, though negotiations are expected to continue.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Putin should "stop wasting the world's time."
British Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper said the Russian leader must end the noise and bloodshed and be ready to negotiate and support a just and lasting peace for Ukraine and in the interests of European security.
Putin met Tuesday evening in Moscow with US President Donald Trump's envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner.
The meeting was another step in renewed US efforts to broker a peace deal that has been elusive since Trump's return to office in January.
The Russian and American sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the talks, but at least one major hurdle to a settlement—whether Russia will retain the Ukrainian territory it has occupied since its February 2022 invasion—remains.
US-Russia talks on Ukraine are "constructive" but there is still work to be done, Putin's adviser says.
Yuri Ushakov, a senior adviser to Putin, told reporters that "so far, no compromise has been found" on the territorial issue, without which, he said, the Kremlin sees "no resolution to this crisis."
Ukraine has also ruled out ceding territory seized by Russia.
Ushakov called the conversations with American officials "quite fruitful, constructive, and quite substantive," but said they discussed the outline of the US peace proposal, rather than "specific formulations."
Ahead of the Kremlin talks, Putin sharply criticized Europe's role in the negotiations, accusing the continent of wanting to sabotage the deal.
"If Europe suddenly wants to go to war with us and starts it, we are ready immediately," he said.
The remarks kept tensions high over efforts to end the nearly four-year-old war.
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