Putin Rejects Ukraine Compromise, Offers Short Ceasefire in Kostiantynivka and Warns Europe on Troops
Photo: Haidamac / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0. A church in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, where between 400 and 500 civilians are said to remain.
Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled on Thursday that Moscow will not soften its demands to end the war in Ukraine, but he offered a short-term ceasefire in a key frontline city during a Kremlin meeting with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Putin repeated Moscow's demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the four Ukrainian regions Russia claims to have annexed — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson — and ruled out agreeing to foreign peacekeeping troops being stationed in Ukraine. He warned that the war would "resume immediately" if European countries deployed troops there to enforce a future peace agreement.
The warning came as Trump's envoys shuttled between Moscow and Dublin following the first direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives in nine months. Witkoff and Kushner met Putin at the Kremlin for about two hours on Thursday before flying directly to Dublin, where they held late-night talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
A Humanitarian Pause in Kostiantynivka
Putin separately proposed organizing what he called a "humanitarian mission" to the city of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine, where he said some 400 to 500 civilians still lived. The idea would be modeled on a short-term truce last month that allowed hundreds of stranded locals to flee the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine.
Putin said Russia would require five days to clear mines from the area around the city to make the operation possible, and suggested a joint Russian-Ukrainian mission to allow civilians to leave and humanitarian assistance to reach those who remain. Russian presidential aide Yury Ushakov told reporters after the meeting that the US negotiators backed Putin's proposal.
Russia claimed in the summer to have captured Kostiantynivka, a key part of Ukraine's so-called fortress belt in Donetsk Oblast, but Ukraine insists fighting there is ongoing. During the televised portion of the Kremlin meeting, Kushner told Putin he had detected a "big shift" among European leaders and argued that bringing them into the negotiations would not derail the peace process.
Kyiv Reacts With Skepticism
Ukraine reacted skeptically to the proposal. Zelenskyy adviser Dmytro Lytvyn said Ukrainian officials believed Russia wanted the pause to rotate and reinforce its forces, alleging that Moscow had used the earlier humanitarian operation in Oleshky to move equipment and replace troops under the cover of a temporary ceasefire.
Zelenskyy has said the Russian side told negotiators it did not have the necessary authority to discuss a broader ceasefire during this week's talks in Abu Dhabi, where the issues of exchanging prisoners of war on a "1,000-for-1,000" or even "1,200-for-1,200" basis were discussed, along with a ceasefire in the Black Sea and an end to strikes against energy facilities.
Europe to Join the Next Round of Talks
The Moscow meeting followed two days of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, which ended without a breakthrough on a ceasefire or territory but produced an agreement in principle on a large-scale prisoner exchange. Kushner said Washington was working toward what would be the largest prisoner exchange of the war, "potentially reuniting thousands of people with their families."
After leaving the Kremlin, Witkoff said Russia had effectively agreed to European participation in the next round of negotiations, though Moscow had not formally confirmed that position. Zelenskyy welcomed the news of a European presence at the next round, saying he hoped the agenda would include efforts toward ceasefires and defusing the conflict.
Trump, who vowed to end the war when he returned to the White House, has yet to reach a deal on that front. Russia holds about a fifth of Ukraine, and Kyiv refuses to give up the rest of its eastern Donbas region — the territorial question both sides acknowledge will be the hardest to resolve.
Sources: Reuters, NHK World-Japan, Kyiv Independent, Daily Sabah, Ynet, Interfax.