Above photo: Julia Demaree Nikhinson / AP.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is planning to travel to Russia for meetings at the Kremlin next week.
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on 27 November that the Kremlin generally agrees that the 28-point US peace plan for Ukraine could form a basis for an agreement, while at the same time calling Ukraine’s leadership illegitimate.
“In general, we agree that this could be the basis for future agreements,” he said while speaking to reporters at the conclusion of a visit to Kyrgyzstan.
“It would be impolite of me to talk about any final options now, as there aren’t any. But some things are fundamental,” Putin said.
Putin said that the US takes Russia’s position, which was discussed before and after the Russian president’s meeting with US President Donald Trump in Alaska in August.
The two leaders need to “sit down and seriously discuss some specific things,” he added.
Trump envoy Steve Witkoff is scheduled to hold talks with his Russian counterparts at the Kremlin next week.
The US president said his son-in-law and former advisor, Jared Kushner, may also attend the Kremlin meeting, adding that any agreement would involve land concessions “both ways” and “trying to clean up the border.”
Ukraine has said it had reached a “common understanding” with the White House on the outline of a potential peace deal.
While speaking in Kyrgyzstan, Putin rejected claims by EU leaders that Russia plans to attack Europe after the war in Ukraine ends, saying that language pledging not to do so should be part of an agreement.
“We need to put everything into diplomatic language because it’s one thing to state in general terms that Russia does not plan to attack Europe. Frankly, that sounds ridiculous. We never had any intention of doing that,” he stated.
While expressing optimism about signing a deal with the US, the Russian president explained that signing an agreement directly with Ukraine was senseless, because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was “illegitimate.”
He said the Ukrainian leadership lost legitimacy after refusing to hold elections when Zelensky’s elected term expired in May 2024.
Officials in Kiev claim they cannot hold elections while under martial law and amid the war with Russia.
Signing a deal with the US and Europe was needed to ensure legitimacy for Russia’s control of Ukrainian territory seized during the war in the Lugansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhia oblasts after the war ends. Much of the population of these Oblasts in eastern Ukraine is ethnically Russian and became the target of the Ukrainian military after a violent coup in Kiev in 2014.
“This is important because recognition of the decisions means that certain territories legally fall under Russian sovereignty. If an attack is launched from the Ukrainian side against those territories, it will be an attack on Russia, and therefore Russia has the right to take countermeasures; otherwise, it could be interpreted as an attempt to reclaim territories belonging to Ukraine,” Putin stated.
