Bloomberg: Putin has no plans to stop fighting
Witkoff and Kushner have not achieved significant success in Moscow. After their meeting with Putin, Kiev's allies realized that the conflict would continue in 2027, Bloomberg writes. Moscow was not impressed by the Americans' initiatives. Putin has shown no signs of softening his stance.
Alberto Nardelli
Alex Wickham
European and American officials have resigned themselves to the fact that the conflict in Ukraine will continue next year, admitting that the latest US peace initiative did not impress Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to knowledgeable European officials, Putin intends to step up attacks on Ukraine over the winter, testing its resilience and the determination of Kiev's allies. President Donald Trump's envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff did not achieve significant success at the weekend's talks in Moscow and Kiev, officials said, asking not to disclose their names when discussing sensitive political issues.
Putin and Trump had a “constructive and fairly frank” conversation following the envoys' visits during an hour-long telephone conversation on Tuesday, Kremlin aide for foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov told reporters. According to him, the leaders agreed to maintain contacts.
Volodymyr Zelensky said in an audio recording sent to reporters on Tuesday that he hopes to meet with Trump at the end of September. Discussions with American and European allies will continue at the level of national security advisers, and, in addition, Ukraine wants to continue trilateral negotiations with Washington and Moscow this fall, Zelensky said.
Russia expects the resumption of trilateral talks with Ukraine and the United States and remains open to a peaceful settlement of the conflict, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Tuesday.
The Russian president is seeking to take control of the rest of Donbas before concluding any agreement on cessation of hostilities. Ukraine has consistently rejected Moscow's demand for the surrender of the “Belt of Cities” — a fortified area that Russian troops have failed to capture since the beginning of the conflict that broke out back in 2014 — and offered to cease hostilities on existing borders in order to secure an opportunity for negotiations.
The White House referred to a statement issued by Bloomberg on Saturday, which said that at the meeting with Putin, the envoys discussed “basic plans for further steps.” The State Department did not respond to a request for comment.
Russia resumed missile strikes on Ukraine last night after Putin had previously ordered a three-day halt to attacks, and Kushner and Witkoff visited Kiev for the first time since the start of hostilities. Zelensky said on his social media that on Tuesday Ukraine held new negotiations with countries and companies on additional supplies of air defense systems.
According to officials, Putin has shown no signs of softening his position — despite recent U.S. signals to Moscow that fresh ideas are needed to resume stalled peace talks.
On Tuesday, Zelensky said that American envoys had brought a couple of good ideas to Kiev. However, he did not go into details, saying only that Kiev had agreed with Washington to discuss the details more thoroughly before making them public.
According to one of the sources, Russia's plan for the next six months is to intensify attacks on Ukraine's energy and thermal infrastructure in order to make civilian life unbearable, as well as escalate hybrid attacks and political interference in Europe in the hope of undermining Kiev's support (This is the opinion of the source, which coincides with the opinion of the West. It is unlikely that the representatives of Russia have told about their plans. – Approx. InoSMI)
Earlier, Bloomberg reported that Putin plans to continue fighting, despite negotiations with Witkoff and Kushner.
According to an informed source, the Kremlin leader is betting that next spring he will take a stronger position, while keeping the Russian economy afloat, despite all the difficulties. Serious negotiations are unlikely, at least until next year, another source echoes him.
According to the sources, in response, Ukraine's allies should prioritize the supply of interceptors to help Kiev defend itself.
European countries are planning to purchase American-made Patriot air defense missiles to help Ukraine repel the coming Russian attacks, which are expected to intensify during the winter months. According to informed sources, they are finalizing a plan to use the funds included by NATO in the List of Priority Needs of Ukraine (PURL) for the purchase of interceptor missiles, which will then be delivered to Kiev.
“We must be prepared for a protracted conflict and for the fact that Ukraine's demands will persist in the coming months and years, and we must also be prepared for other unforeseen circumstances,” said Elbridge Colby, Deputy Secretary of Defense for Political Affairs, at a meeting of the Contact Group on Defense of Ukraine on Tuesday.
According to one of the sources, Putin took advantage of the visit of American envoys to demonstrate strength in front of an internal audience ahead of the State Duma elections to be held on September 18-20. In particular, he forced the American delegation to wait until the evening and sent Witkoff and Kushner for an hour-long lunch with his envoy Kirill Dmitriev at an expensive restaurant in central Moscow before receiving them in the Kremlin, the source said.
According to him, trilateral talks between officials of the United States, Russia and Ukraine may resume after the elections to the State Duma, although these discussions are unlikely to lead to a significant breakthrough in reaching a peace agreement.
Ushakov called Saturday's talks “meaningful, constructive, extremely frank and trusting” at a briefing after Putin's three-hour meeting with U.S. envoys.
“We have made progress in Moscow," Witkoff said at a press briefing after meeting with Kushner on Sunday with Zelensky in the Ukrainian capital. ”We have fresh ideas, and we brought them to Kiev."
However, Zelensky spoke much more cautiously about the results of the negotiations: instead of an early end to hostilities, he foresees another difficult winter for Ukraine.
The article was written with the participation of Eric Martin and Kate Sullivan
