Moscow’s comments follow a meeting between Trump administration officials and Russian representatives on Dec. 2.
The Kremlin said that Russian President Vladimir Putin had accepted some, but not all, of the United States’ proposals to end the war in Ukraine on Dec. 3.
Putin met with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in the evening of Dec. 2 for a discussion that lasted into the small hours of the following morning.
“The fact is that such a direct exchange of views [on the Ukraine peace plan between Moscow and Washington] took place yesterday for the first time. And again, as was stated yesterday, some things were accepted, others were marked as unacceptable,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, according to Russian state news agency TASS.
“This is a normal working process of seeking a compromise.”
When asked whether it would be correct to say that Putin had rejected the American proposals, Peskov replied that it would not.
He said that the Kremlin would not be giving a running commentary on how the talks were progressing.
“We proceed from the premise that in this case, it is better for these negotiations to be conducted in silence,” Peskov said.
“In this case, we are not proponents of megaphone diplomacy, and we also see that the Americans adhere to the same principle.”
Work is currently being carried out at a working expert level, he said.
“It is at the expert level that certain results should be achieved that will then become the basis for contacts at the highest level,” he said.
The Kremlin spokesman went on to say that Russia was grateful to Trump for his efforts and highly appreciated his “political will to continue to seek a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine.”
A phone call between Trump and Putin was possible “at any time,“ he added, saying that Moscow’s representatives were ready to meet with their American counterparts for ”as long as it takes to achieve a peaceful settlement” in Ukraine.
Peskov’s statements come on the heels of a meeting involving Witkoff and Kushner on the American side, and Putin, his top foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, and the Russian presidential representative for investment and economic cooperation with foreign countries, Kirill Dmitriev, on the other side, in Moscow on Dec. 2.
Speaking at a briefing in the Kremlin after the meeting, Ushakov told reporters that the meeting was “constructive,” but said, “Compromises have not yet been found.”
“There is still a lot of work to be done,” Ushakov said.
However, Ushakov acknowledged that during the meeting, officials discussed the so-called “territorial problem,” Russia’s terminology for its claims to the whole of the Donbas region. Ukrainian forces currently control at least 1,900 square miles of the area.
By Guy Birchall
