MOSCOW, Nov 12 (Reuters) – US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, part of their latest push for a peace deal in Ukraine.
The Kremlin talks – expected to take place in the first half of the day – will be the 10th time that Witkoff has met Putin in person, and follow two days of trilateral peace talks in Abu Dhabi which finished on Wednesday with news of another planned major prisoner exchange but no public breakthrough in wider negotiations.
Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy, met Kushner and Witkoff off their plane amid wet snow and accompanied them to central Moscow ahead of their talks with Putin.
This week’s Abu Dhabi talks were the first direct negotiations between Russia and Ukraine mediated by the US to try to end the 4-1/2-year-old war in nine months and, although Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reported some progress, the US side said differences remained on major issues, including territory.
Despite public optimism from US President Trump, there has been no sign of major compromises.
Kyiv has strongly rejected Putin’s demands to surrender the whole of the eastern region of Donbas in return for peace, and with talks deadlocked on land, US mediators have tried to steer discussions towards postwar security guarantees and reconstruction.
A senior Russian diplomat said on Wednesday that Moscow could conclude non-aggression pacts with NATO member states as part of a new security architecture for Europe, though many European politicians say they oppose any discussion of Europe’s overall security before real progress on Ukraine – including a ceasefire – is made.
(Reporting by Reuters Editing by Andrew Osborn )
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