US envoy Witkoff meeting Putin in Moscow – DW – 12/02/2025

This comes as Russia claims total control of the city while Ukraine says its forces are still fighting in the north. 

The NATO representative said Ukraine was “conducting an orderly withdrawal” as Russian forces controlled “the vast majority of the city.” 

In response to a question from DW’s Xenia Polska, he said it was important to note that taking Pokrovsk was something Russia had expected to achieve more than a year ago. 

“It has spent a lot of Russian lives in the pursuit of this goal. It destroyed much of the city in the process, and it’s been very, very slow progress to get here,” he said. “But the during that timeframe, the Ukrainians have been able to take measures so that the fall of Pokrovsk will not have the same strategic impact that it would have had, had this occurred on the Russian timeline.”

He estimated, based on previous NATO estimates of Russia sustaining around 360,000 casualties a year, with so much of the fighting centered around Pokrovsk this year, that Russia would have lost “several hundred per day” in the area.

The EU and Britain are trying to protect Ukraine’s interests, and their own, as the US leads negotiations to end Moscow’s Ukraine war. But Washington has been keeping European allies at arm’s length. 

Read more about that in this DW article, here.

Russian President Vladimir Putin received US envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the Kremlin on Tuesday. 

Images broadcast on state television showed Putin greeting the two US businessmen turned diplomats. 

“So pleased to see you,” Putin told Witkoff and Kushner, sitting alongside translators. 

The US duo had earlier been pictured landing in the Russian capital and being shown part of the city by Kirill Dmitriev, the chairman of the Russia Direct Investment Fund sovereign wealth fund sanctioned by the US government in 2022.

Russia’s Vladimir Putin accused European powers of trying to thwart potential peace talks with Ukraine by putting forward proposals they knew would be “absolutely unacceptable” to Moscow. 

“They don’t have a peace agenda, they’re on the side of war,” he alleged.

Putin said that Russia did not want a war with European powers, but that it was ready to fight if Europe did want a direct conflict.

The Russian president argued that European powers had locked themselves out of potential peace talks by cutting off contacts with his administration. 

European powers meanwhile accuse Putin’s Russia of roughly the same thing: floating conditions for a supposed peace that it knew to be unacceptable to Ukraine and its neighbors via the Trump administration so it could then complain at the revisions that followed.

Putin was speaking ahead of a visit to Moscow by real estate developer Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner to discuss the latest peace proposals. 

This follows talks between Ukrainian and US officials over the weekend.

President Vladimir Putin said in televised remarks that Russia’s army was in complete control of Pokrovsk in Ukraine. 

A focal point on part of the front line for well over a year, Russia has claimed decisive advances around the modal point in recent days and weeks. 

Ukrainian authorities however say that their forces retain control of the north of Pokrovsk. 

Putin said the small city, long nearly abandoned by its civilian population of around 60,000 prior to Russia’s invasion, was of “special significance” and would prove a “great base for fulfilling goals.” 

The logistics hub sits on key road and rail lines and could prove a gateway towards the remaining large cities in the Donetsk region still controlled by Ukraine. 

With the battle lines in Ukraine largely static for years, Pokrovsk would be the biggest settlement claimed by Russia since the fall of Avdiivka, an almost-deserted town of around 30,000 people before the war, in February 2024.

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has said he is confident that US-led efforts to end the war in Ukraine could move Europe closer to peace, as American envoys meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.

“We are all working to bring the war against Ukraine to an end, with a just and lasting peace. We welcome the ongoing efforts led by the United States to make this a reality,” Rutte told journalists.

“I am confident that these sustained efforts will, eventually, restore peace in Europe.”

Rutte said Kyiv had already shown it was prepared to “play ball” with President Donald Trump’s push to halt the fighting. “Today, we will see whether the Russians are willing also to engage. That’s now being tested,” he said.

NATO foreign ministers are set to discuss the US approach at their meeting in Brussels on Wednesday. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will not attend.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine’s delegation has delivered a full in-person briefing after meetings in the United States.

Zelenskyy, who is visiting Ireland, posted that Ukraine’s national security council secretary Rustem Umerov and negotiators in Florida outlined the key points raised by the US side. He said the talks were based on the so-called Geneva document, which had been criticized as conceding too much to Russia but which has since been refined.

Zelenskyy said US officials were given a detailed update on front-line conditions. Both sides discussed the practicality of possible moves at the front and the challenges of protecting Ukraine from Russian strikes, including the risk of violations if a ceasefire were reached.

“Our diplomats are actively working with all partners to ensure that European countries and other participants in the Coalition of the Willing are meaningfully involved in developing decisions,” the Ukrainian president said.

“Ukraine approaches all diplomatic efforts with utmost seriousness — we are committed to achieving a real peace and guaranteed security. This is exactly the level of commitment that must be compelled from the Russian side, and this task can be accomplished only together with our partners,” he added.

The EU and Canada have announced that Ottawa will join in Europe’s €150 billion ($174 billion) SAFE defense financing instrument.

The fund has been set up as the EU seeks to boost its defense industry in response to growing military aggression from Russia.

Read more about the story here.

A Ukrainian drone strike has ignited a fire at an oil facility in Russia’s Oryol region, according to local authorities.

Governor Andrey Klychkov said on Telegram that the blaze broke out at an energy plant in the Livny district and that no injuries were reported.

Unverified videos of the fire circulated on social media. The outlet Astra reported that residents said an oil depot had been targeted.

The city of Oryol said it would have to introduce restrictions.

“It will be necessary to limit the heat and hot water supply to buildings in the Sovetsky, Zheleznodorozhny and Severny
districts of the city of Oryol,” the governor of the Oryol region, Andrey Klychkov, wrote on social media.

Russia has been waging war on Ukraine for more than three and a half years. Ukraine has routinely struck locations deep inside Russia as part of its defense effort, aiming to disrupt the country’s oil sector, cut supplies to the Russian military and weaken a key source of revenue for Moscow.

The northern part of the strategic eastern city of Pokrovsk is still under the control of Ukrainian forces, a military unit fighting there told Reuters news agency on Tuesday.

The statement came after Russian President Vladimir Putin hailed what his commanders described as the full capture of Pokrovsk.

Ukraine’s 7th Rapid Response Corps of airborne assault troops said it has launched assaults in the city’s south, where Russian forces remain dominant.

Pokrovsk is an important logistics hub that had a population of around 60,000 prior to the war.

If Russia were to capture the city, it could use it as a base from which to advance on the two largest Ukrainian-controlled cities remaining in the Donetsk region: Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

The Swedish government said on Tuesday it will donate 1.1 billion Swedish crowns ($116.41 million, €100.3 million) to Ukraine.

The fund is meant to support civilians as the country braces for winter.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has declined to guarantee a €140 billion ($162.5 billion) loan for Ukraine, the Financial Times reported.

The decision undermines an European Union (EU) plan to take out a big loan, using frozen Russian assets as backing, to fund Ukraine.

The ECB said the proposal violated its mandate, FT reported citing sources, hindering EU from moving forward with the plan.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy arrived in Ireland late Monday for his first official visit to the country.

On Tuesday, Zelenskyy will be meeting Ireland’s new president, Catherine Connolly, before sitting down with Ireland’s taoiseach (prime minister) Micheal Martin for bilateral talks.

The Ukrainian leader will launch the Ireland-Ukraine Economic Forum and later address the Irish parliament at Leinster House.

Martin, who met Zelenskyy upon his arrival, said the visit comes at a “critical time” for Kyiv, and reiterated Ireland’s “unswerving commitment to standing with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes.”

The visit follows Zelenskyy’s meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris a day earlier.

Ireland has been a staunch ally of Ukraine’s since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, offering some 120,000 Ukrainians a safe haven.

President Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, Steve Witkoff, will meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss the Trump administration’s proposal to end the war in Ukraine.

The meeting is expected to address borders, security guarantees, frozen Russian assets, and potential US-Russian investment projects.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin would receive Witkoff, whose role has been under the scanner after reports emerged that he advised a senior Kremlin aide on how to present a Ukraine peace plan to US President Donald Trump.

“I think the administration feels very optimistic,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Monday.

The Moscow talks follow Sunday’s meeting between Ukrainian and US negotiators, with both delegations having said the talks were “productive.”

Kyiv and Washington are reworking the US proposal, criticized for initially favoring Russian positions.  

Plus, European leaders remained engaged in a flurry of diplomatic activity, with French President Emmanuel Macron having met Zelenskyy on Monday.

Macron and Zelenskyy also spoke with Witkoff ahead of the Moscow meeting.

Welcome to our coverage of Russia’s war in Ukraine on Tuesday morning, with negotiations to end the war in Ukraine to take place in Moscow this afternoon.

The US-Russia talks come after US and Ukrainian officials discussed the plan in Florida over the weekend.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Paris on Monday to discuss the plan with European allies.

Zelenskyy then said the proposal “looks better” than the initial one that was drafted by the US and was roundly criticized because it was seen as having heavily favored Russia.

Also on Monday, Russian forces claimed to have captured the frontline Ukrainian towns of Pokrovsk and Vovchansk. But there is no confirmation yet.