Steve Witkoff’s sixth visit of the year to Moscow seems to have ended again with very little to show for it. The US special envoy was in the Russian capital with Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law, to meet President Vladimir Putin and present the latest version of a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine. Little is currently known about the contents of the peace plan itself.

Witkoff and Kushner spent five hours with Putin in the Kremlin. Speaking after the meeting, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov called the summit ‘very useful, constructive and substantive’ but said that ‘a compromise hasn’t been found yet’. Asked whether peace was closer or further away after the talks, Ushakov’s answer was an unpromising ‘definitely not further’.

As has become par for the course in Trump’s diplomatic handling of the conflict, no Ukrainian representatives were present at the meeting – nor were any of Kyiv’s European allies. Speaking bullishly earlier in the day, despite the mild cold that left him with a husky voice and cough, Putin claimed that Ukraine’s European allies had ‘sidelined themselves’ from the negotiations because they were unhappy with the direction the conflict is taking. 

Accusing the continent of lacking a ‘peaceful agenda’, Putin warmed to his theme, adding that Europe was intent on sabotaging Trump’s plan for peace. The Kremlin has........

© The Spectator