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Vladimir Putin accused European countries on Tuesday of undermining Washington’s efforts to end the war in Ukraine, as US envoy Steve Witkoff held talks with the Russian president in Moscow.
Putin on Tuesday said: “They [the Europeans] have no peace agenda. They are on the side of war. And even when they try to make supposed adjustments to [Donald] Trump’s proposal, it is clear that these changes aim at one purpose: to block the entire peace process.”
Speaking at the “Russia Calling!” investment forum in Moscow, he added: “They put forward demands they know are entirely unacceptable for Russia, and then aim to pin the collapse of the peace process on us.”
In a belligerent speech, Putin threatened to “cut Ukraine off from the sea entirely” in retaliation for attacks on Russia-linked tankers.
He added that “we have no intention of fighting Europe — I’ve said this a hundred times. But if Europe decides to start a war, we are ready right now.”
Witkoff’s visit came after Russian officials said they were open to discussing a peace plan drawn up by the US envoy with Moscow’s input, but resisted a revised, shorter version incorporating changes from Ukrainian officials. The full terms of that revised plan have not been revealed.
On the eve of negotiations the Kremlin claimed Russian forces had seized Pokrovsk, a town in Donetsk province that they fought to take for well over a year while sustaining enormous casualties, as well as Vovchansk in Kharkiv.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Valery Gerasimov, Russia’s top military commander, had reported the gains to Russia’s president during a visit to a command post on Monday.
Putin said Krasnoarmeysk, Russia’s name for Pokrovsk, was “fully under the control of the Russian army. If anyone has doubts, we invite foreign journalists — including Ukrainian reporters — to see for themselves who actually holds the city.”
Gerasimov has previously made inflated assertions about Russian gains, including the alleged encirclement of Pokrovsk. Andriy Kovalenko, an official in Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, dismissed Moscow’s claims as a “cognitive show” aimed at impressing US negotiators.
Ukraine’s general staff of the armed forces said: “The boastful statements of the leadership of the aggressor state regarding the ‘capture’ of these settlements by the Russian army do not correspond to reality.
“This is merely yet another attempt by the Kremlin to use a staged ‘flag-planting’ video for propaganda purposes in order to influence participants in international negotiations.”
Witkoff’s visit to Moscow is his sixth this year, but the first in which he has not travelled alone: he was joined by the US president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has taken on a more active advisory role in the peace talks since he helped broker a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
A gulf remains between Ukraine and Russia on territorial concessions and postwar security guarantees.
A major sticking point is Russia’s insistence that Ukrainian forces give up the remaining one-fifth of Donetsk province they still hold nearly four years after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Kyiv insists any negotiation on territory must begin from the current line of control, a point Trump himself made after his October meeting with Zelenskyy.
Ukrainian officials are concerned Witkoff will again side with Moscow during this week’s talks.
“It has happened many times where we had co-ordinated our position with the US and then Witkoff goes to Moscow and, after seeing Putin, Trump puts out a statement that takes us back to square one,” said a senior Ukrainian official.
During a phone call with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, Witkoff agreed that Ukraine’s surrender of the rest of Donetsk was a prerequisite for a deal, according to a leaked recording of the conversation reported by Bloomberg.
Speaking in the Irish parliament on Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy did not address the talks between Washington and Moscow but said it was time for seized Russian assets to be used to help rebuild his country. “The aggressor must be held accountable for what was done,” he said.
On the battlefield, Deep State, a Ukrainian analytical group close to the defence ministry that tracks the frontline, on Monday evening said the “situation remains critical” in and around Pokrovsk but that the battle for the stronghold and its satellite city of Myrnohrad continued.
Russian forces were “trying to establish physical control” in contested areas, it said, while laying mines and military obstacles and staging ambushes.
The Centre for Defence Strategies, a Kyiv-based security think-tank, said Russian forces controlled at least half of Pokrovsk. “The enemy has an advantage in manpower and is attempting to accumulate assault infantry” around the city, it wrote in a briefing on Monday evening.
CDS said pressure from three sides was forcing Ukrainian forces in Myrnohrad “to withdraw to avoid encirclement”.
“Russian forces are advancing slowly but have not been able to fully capture Pokrovsk, even though they entered the city more than 120 days ago.”
Additional reporting by Shane Harrison in Dublin
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