Europeans accuse Putin of feigning interest in peace

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Presidential foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov attend talks with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff (back to a camera) at the Kremlin

Ukrainian and European officials accused Russian President Vladimir Putin yesterday of feigning interest in peace efforts after five hours of talks with U.S. envoys at the Kremlin produced no breakthrough.

The Russian leader “should end the bluster and the bloodshed and be ready to come to the table and to support a just and lasting peace,” said U.K. Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha urged Putin to “stop wasting the world’s time.”

The remarks reflect the high tensions and gaping gulf that remain between Russia on one side and Ukraine and its European allies on the other over how to end a war that Moscow started when it invaded its neighbor nearly four years ago.

A day earlier, Putin accused the Europeans of sabotaging the U.S.-led peace efforts — and warned that, if provoked, Russia would be ready for war with Europe.

Since Moscow invaded Ukraine in 2022, European governments, along with the U.S., have spent billions of dollars to support Kyiv financially and militarily. Under President Donald Trump, however, the U.S. has tempered its support — and instead made a push to end the war.

Where the peace talks go from here depends largely on whether the Trump administration decides to increase the pressure on Russia or on Ukraine to make concessions.

A U.S. peace proposal that became public last month was criticized for being tilted heavily toward Moscow because it granted some of the Kremlin’s core demands that Kyiv has rejected as nonstarters.

Many European leaders worry that if Russia gets what it wants in Ukraine, it will have free rein to threaten their countries, which already have faced incursions from Russian drones and fighter jets, and an alleged widespread sabotage campaign.

Putin met Tuesday in Moscow with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner. The Russian and American sides agreed not to disclose the substance of the talks, but at least one major hurdle to a settlement — the fate of four Ukrainian regions Russia partially seized and occupies and claims as its own — remains.

After the talks, Yuri Ushakov, a senior adviser to Putin, told reporters that “so far, a compromise hasn’t been found” on the issue of territory, without which, he said, the Kremlin sees “no resolution to the crisis.”

Ukraine has ruled out giving up territory that Russia has captured.

Asked whether peace was closer or further away after these talks, Ushakov said: “Not further, that’s for sure.”

“But there’s still a lot of work to be done, both in Washington and in Moscow,” he said.

Europeans step up assistance for Ukraine

Foreign ministers from European NATO countries, meeting in Brussels yesterday, showed little patience with Moscow.

“What we see is that Putin has not changed any course. He’s pushing more aggressively on the battlefield,” Estonian Foreign Minister Margus Tsahkna said. “It’s pretty obvious that he doesn’t want to have any kind of peace.”

Finnish Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen struck the same note. “So far we haven’t seen any concessions from the side of the aggressor, which is Russia, and I think the best confidence-building measure would be to start with a full ceasefire,” she told reporters.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said Ukraine’s partners will keep sending it military aid to ensure pressure is maintained on Moscow.

“The peace talks are ongoing. That’s good,” Rutte said.

“But at the same time, we have to make sure that whilst they take place and we are not sure when they will end, that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going, to fight back against the Russians,” he said.

Canada, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands announced that they will spend hundreds of millions of dollars more together to buy U.S. weapons to donate to Ukraine.

In August, European allies at NATO began buying American weapons for Ukraine under a financial arrangement known as the Prioritized Ukraine Requirements List, or PURL.

The war claims more lives

Russia and Ukraine are engaged in a grim war of attrition on the battlefield and are using drones and missiles for long-range strikes behind the front line. Many analysts have noted that the slow slog favors Russia’s larger military, especially if disagreements between Europe and the U.S. or among Europeans hampers the delivery of weapons to Ukraine.

Russian drones hit the town of Ternivka in Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, killing two people and injuring three more, the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko, said yesterday.

Two people were in critical condition, he said, after the attack destroyed one house and damaged six more.

Overall, Russia fired 111 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. LORNE COOK, KYIV, MDT/AP