Steve Witkoff has flown to Moscow to press Vladimir Putin after a weekend of negotiations with Ukraine, carrying a narrowed 19-point proposal shaped with Jared Kushner and Ukrainian counterparts; the talks aim to test whether Putin will move on core issues like territory, troop caps and Ukraine’s security status. The meetings mark the most active push toward a settlement since the 2022 invasion, but big obstacles remain and Washington is watching whether Putin shows any flexibility this week.
Witkoff and Jared Kushner are operating as informal envoys, trying to bridge a gap that professional diplomacy has struggled to close. They pared down an earlier 28-point plan after Kyiv rejected parts of it as too favorable to Moscow, then reworked the framework in Geneva and again in Florida to trim contentious items.
At the heart of the standoff are three brutal realities: territory, Ukraine’s future security ties, and how any ceasefire would actually hold. Russia insists Ukraine cannot join NATO, a demand that clashes with Ukraine’s constitutional ambition, and both sides have argued about the size of future Ukrainian forces as a proxy for long-term security guarantees.
Moscow initially pushed a cap of 600,000 troops in peacetime, while European and Ukrainian officials countered with an 800,000 figure; Ukraine now fields roughly 880,000 troops, up sharply from before the invasion. Those numbers matter because they reflect who feels secure and who does not, and they feed directly into the territorial bargaining that has proven the trickiest of all.
The biggest roadblock remains land. Earlier drafts suggested recognizing Crimea and large swaths of Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia as effectively under Russian control, a proposal Kyiv found unacceptable. A sudden shake-up in Ukrainian leadership — the resignation of chief negotiator Andriy Yermak after a corruption probe and a raid at his home — has added political turbulence to already fragile talks.
“Not a single sane person today would sign a document to give up territory,” he told The Atlantic magazine. That blunt line captures the domestic political toxicity any deal will face in Kyiv, where leaders must balance survival at the negotiating table with the fury of a population that sees land as nonnegotiable.
Putin signaled openness to “serious” talks at the end of November but also made clear he believes Russia holds the advantage on the battlefield. “If they don’t withdraw, we will achieve this by force,” he said, underscoring that Moscow views military leverage as an active part of its bargaining posture and raising the risk that diplomacy could falter if concessions are not acceptable to both sides.
Washington still has tools to press for a workable outcome, from squeezing sanctions tighter to ramping up military assistance, but many of the heftiest economic penalties and U.S. security transfers are already in play. That reality narrows the practical options if negotiations stall, leaving political pressure and targeted financial moves as the primary levers left to influence Moscow.
“So much work remains,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said after the meeting, a reminder that even optimistic daily briefings do not erase the scale of the hurdles ahead. “There’s a good chance we can make a deal,” Trump said, while also voicing impatience that a resolution has not arrived faster and noting that a settlement “should have happened a long time ago.”
The coming face-to-face with Putin will be a clear test of whether the trimmed 19-point package can survive the hardest bargaining round: a direct conversation between leaders. If Putin shows willingness to compromise on the toughest issues, the window for a deal widens; if not, the talks may stall and the U.S. will be left weighing incremental pressure and support options to keep Kyiv standing without conceding core principles.
