US delegation expected in Russia next week – DW – 11/27/2025

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said it would be “foolish” to sign any ceasefire agreement with what he considers an “illegitimate” Ukrainian leadership.

“I hope we can reach an agreement with Ukraine in the future,” he said. , But claimed that President Volodymyr Zelensky and his democratically elected government lost legitimacy after their term ended.

Ukraine says its constitution prevents it from holding elections while the country is under martial law and still defending itself against foreign invasion.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has made the withdrawal of Ukrainian forces from areas claimed by Moscow a precondition for any ceasefire.

“If Ukrainian forces leave their occupied territories, we will cease combat operations,” Putin said during a visit to Kyrgyzstan. “If they don’t do it, we will achieve it by military means.”

After illegally annexing Crimea in 2014, Russia unilaterally claimed to annex the Ukrainian regions of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhia in September 2022, despite not having full control over any of them at the time.

On Thursday Putin said that “Crimea and Donbass should be the subject of our negotiations with the United States”. , The latter is generally understood to refer to the Luhansk and Donetsk regions together.

Ukraine is unwilling to give up territory it still controls, particularly the chain of fortified cities in Donetsk, including Sloviansk, Kramatorsk and Pokrovsk, which it continues to defend.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has confirmed that a delegation from the United States will arrive in Russia next week for talks over Moscow’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Speaking at the end of a visit to Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, Putin named his advisers Vladimir Medinsky and Yuri Ushakov and said the Russian side would be represented by officials from the Foreign Ministry and the President’s Office.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who last week was involved in drafting a controversial 28-point plan to end the war in Ukraine, is also expected to arrive in Moscow, according to Kremlin officials.

“In general, we agree that this can be the basis for future agreements,” Putin said of the plan. He said a version of the plan recently discussed by the United States and Ukraine in Switzerland has also been passed to Russia.

A Ukrainian suspected of coordinating an attack on the Nord Stream pipeline was extradited from Italy to Germany on Thursday, judicial sources told the German dpa news agency.

The 2022 attack targeted a pipeline bringing Russian gas directly to Germany through the Baltic Sea. Both Moscow and the West called it an act of sabotage.

The suspect, identified as Serhiy under German privacy laws, was arrested in Rimini, Italy, on a European warrant in August.

The charges against him include collusion to carry out explosions, anti-constitutional subversion and destruction of vital structures.

His lawyer Nicola Canestrini has said that despite fighting extradition, he is confident of being acquitted after a trial in Germany.

Another suspect, identified by German authorities as Volodymyr Z, was arrested in Poland in September. A Polish court ruled against his extradition last month.

A Russian court has sentenced eight people to life in prison for a bomb attack that damaged a bridge linking Russian-occupied Crimea to the Russian mainland.

“The defendants were found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment,” Russia’s Southern Military Court in the city of Rostov-on-Don said on Telegram.

On October 8, 2022, a truck exploded on the bridge, setting seven oil tankers on the freight train on fire. Five people died in the explosion.

Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and later used it as a launchpad for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Ukraine’s secret service claimed responsibility for the attack, which temporarily shut down the main lifeline to the illegally occupied peninsula.

The Kerch bridge is seen by both sides as a symbol of Russia’s illegal occupation, with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself inaugurating the 19-kilometre (12-mile) road and rail bridge in 2018.

Ukraine has targeted the key bridge in several attacks over the past few years.

Belgian securities depository Euroclear has said an EU plan to access frozen Russian assets could spook markets and raise borrowing costs. financial Times Informed.

About €185 billion ($215 billion) of Russian assets are held in depositories, with another €25 billion held in other EU countries, mostly in France and Luxembourg.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on Wednesday the EU plans to introduce a legal text that could pave the way for frozen assets to be used as loans to finance Ukraine. Such a plan had been discussed since the beginning of the war, but Belgium had blocked it out of fear of Russian retaliation.

Euroclear reportedly warned that the move could be seen as “seizure”, which would harm the EU’s investment climate.

German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is set to host his Estonian Prime Minister Kristen Michael in Berlin.

After a ceremony with military honors, the two leaders are set to discuss security on NATO’s eastern flank, a topic that has taken on greater importance following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Estonia shares a 300-kilometre (186 mi) border with Russia and has reported the presence of Russian drones or military jets in its airspace several times in the past week.

Estonia, which like Ukraine declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, has been one of Kiev’s most consistent supporters since the Russian invasion.

DW spoke to exiled Belarusian opposition leader Sviatlana Tsikhanouskaya about how the fates of her home country and Ukraine are intertwined and how both “post-Soviet states” are vital to European security.

After meeting with Ukrainian officials in Kiev, US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll held talks with a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi.

He is rapidly becoming a prominent figure in American foreign policy.

Read the whole story to find out who Dan Driscoll really is.

US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow next week to meet with Russian counterparts as European leaders rush to revise a US-backed peace plan.

Watch DW’s The Day with Phil Gale for the full story:

Thanks for staying with us today as we bring you the latest from Russia’s war in Ukraine.

The Trump administration is pushing for a new 28-point peace accord, which Ukraine and its European allies have sought to amend saying it favors Russia.

Now, according to US President Donald Trump, US representatives are in talks with both Ukraine and Russia on a new draft, which has been “fine-tuned”.

Nevertheless, the EU has expressed doubt that Russia is ready for peace talks and has called for increased pressure to bring it to the table.