Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed ending the war in Ukraine with envoys from US President Donald Trump during talks that lasted nearly four hours tonight.
After the talks, the Kremlin stressed that a peace agreement requires the territorial issue to be resolved.
The meeting between US President's envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner with Putin lasted until after three o'clock tonight, local time.
Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov, who participated in the meeting, said it was "reaffirmed that reaching a long-term agreement cannot be expected without resolving the territorial issue."
This refers to Moscow's demands that Kiev withdraw its troops from areas in eastern Ukraine that Russia has illegally annexed but not fully occupied.
Ushakov also told reporters that it had been agreed that Russian, Ukrainian and American officials would discuss security issues related to a future peace agreement today in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
Ushakov said that during the talks in the Kremlin, the US expressed hope that the meeting would "open up prospects for moving forward on a whole range of issues related to ending the conflict and achieving a peaceful solution."
He said the Russian delegation would be led by the head of military intelligence, Admiral Igor Kostyukov. He said Putin's envoy, Kirill Dmitriyev, would hold separate talks on economic issues with US envoy Vitkoff in Abu Dhabi.
The meeting in Abu Dhabi was also announced yesterday by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Davos, where he met with US President Donald Trump.
Ushakov said Trump's envoys informed Putin about Trump's meeting with Zelensky, as well as earlier conversations the US president had with Ukrainian and European officials.
The Kremlin described the meeting as "open and constructive" and "fruitful," and the talks began before midnight Moscow time and lasted almost four hours.
Witkoff and Kushner were joined by Josh Greenbaum, the head of the Federal Procurement Service, who serves as a senior adviser to Trump's Peace Council. Trump invited Russian President Putin to join his Peace Council, launched yesterday on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos.
Russia said it was considering the offer, and Putin reaffirmed his offer to give $1 billion to the Peace Committee to help finance the reconstruction of Gaza, which would be taken from Russian assets frozen in the United States.
Asked about Putin's proposal to use Russian frozen assets as a contribution to the Peace Committee, Trump said he thought it was fine. "If he uses his own money, that's great," Trump told reporters.
Zelensky met with Trump behind closed doors for about an hour on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos and described the meeting as "productive and significant."
Speaking to reporters on Air Force One after returning from Davos to Washington, Trump said his meeting with Zelensky went well, adding that both Putin and Zelensky wanted to reach an agreement and that "everyone is making concessions" in an attempt to end the war.
Trump said the issues at stake in the talks remain the same as they have been for the past six or seven months, indicating that the key issue is "the border."
"The main blockage is the same things that have blocked things for the last year," Trump said.
The Russian military has managed to seize about 20 percent of Ukraine since hostilities began in 2014 and since the start of the full invasion in 2022. However, the battlefield advance along the approximately 1.000-kilometer front line has been costly for Moscow, and the Russian economy is feeling the effects of the war and international sanctions, according to the AP agency.
Ukraine is short of money and, despite a significant boost to its own arms production, still needs Western weapons. It also lacks front-line personnel. The Ukrainian defense minister reported last week that some 200.000 soldiers have deserted and about two million Ukrainians are avoiding conscription.
Speaking to the World Economic Forum after his meeting with Trump, Zelensky yesterday leveled a series of criticisms at Europe, which he called on to become a global power.
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