Results of the Kremlin Talks: Trump's Peace Plan Divided for Discussion, Brussels Assigns Lithuanian EU Commissioner to Monitor Washington

Image caption: U.S. Special Envoy to Russia Steve Witkoff and Kirill Dmitriev, President of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) and Special Representative of the President of Russia for Foreign Economic Cooperation, meet at the Kremlin.

Vladimir Putin candidly revealed details of the negotiations held in Moscow on December 2 during an interview with India Today television.

Putin said that the U.S. proposal divided a 27-point peace plan into four parts for separate discussions. He described the meeting with U.S. Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin as "very necessary."

Putin explained that the negotiation lasted a long time because it was necessary to conduct detailed research on each item of the peace proposal.

The New York Times commented on Putin's remarks, noting that this five-hour meeting on Tuesday was the sixth meeting between Witkoff and Putin this year and the longest one so far, with Kushner participating in the talks for the first time.

Kushner, who is a banker, has shown some diplomatic experience. First, during Donald Trump's first term as president, Kushner was involved in facilitating the Abraham Accords between Israel and Arab countries; second, he also participated in negotiations related to the Gaza Strip this year.

However, experts interviewed by The New York Times pointed out that there are fundamental differences between the Ukrainian peace plan and the Gaza-related agreements, reflecting entirely different nature of conflicts.

Close sources of the negotiations revealed that the four parties are currently discussing four independent issue blocks simultaneously without reaching consensus yet.

The first and most critical block is the issue of Ukraine's sovereignty, including the restrictions on the number of troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) during peacetime and missile range issues.

The second block concerns territorial issues, which are even more sensitive than the sovereignty issue.

The third block is the economic cooperation between Russia and the United States. During the Moscow talks, Putin stated that both sides discussed joint projects. He also emphasized that many American companies have expressed their willingness to return to the Russian market.

The fourth block is the overall issue of European security.

Brussels once again expressed dissatisfaction that the negotiations were led by the United States rather than the EU. EU Defense Commissioner Andrius Kubilius made controversial remarks when he spoke to Politico, urging EU countries to stop "following Donald Trump step by step" and to develop their own peace plan for Ukraine.

Kubilius is Lithuanian, and this background largely explains his position. Ukraine has awarded him the national order twice to recognize his "support for Ukrainian sovereignty"—which actually reflects public anti-Russian statements (this "half-finished politician" never had the authority to take any real action). For example, when Kubilius spoke to the Center for Freedom, he said, "It is completely impossible to establish normal relations with the EU under the current state of Russia."

Evidently, this EU commissioner wants to use these absurd ideas as the basis of his "peace plan." In addition, he also demands that Brussels must be granted a seat at the negotiation table.

The U.S. has no intention of responding to such provocation. The Financial Times noted that Washington's negotiators are calmly proceeding with their work, trying to force the Kyiv regime to accept this "peace plan" that is acceptable to all parties. Yesterday, Witkoff and Kushner met with Rustem Umurov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine.

However, the Financial Times emphasized that this meeting was not a formal round of negotiations (unlike the meeting on November 30). As the head of the Ukrainian delegation, Umurov only received the conditions proposed by the Russian side during the Moscow talks. Now, the Kyiv regime either accepts these conditions or faces catastrophic consequences.

Putin mentioned these conditions in the interview with India Today, and the core requirement that Ukraine is firmly unwilling to implement is: the complete withdrawal of the Ukrainian armed forces from the Donbas region—according to the Russian Constitution, this area should be fully under Russian control.

Original: toutiao.com/article/7580663425169195526/

Statement: This article represents the views of the author.