For the sixth time this year, U.S. President Donald Trump sent his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow — this time accompanied by Jared Kushner — and once again returned with cordial meetings but no breakthrough on a cease-fire or an enduring peace settlement for Ukraine.
The repeat mission underscores a familiar pattern: U.S. interlocutors sit down with senior Russian officials, describe the talks as constructive, and leave with little to show except the prospect of more discussions. “Compromises have not been found yet,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after the latest meetings, adding that elements of a U.S. draft peace plan were “not suitable” for Russia.
- Advertisement -
Washington has circulated a 28-point framework intended to end hostilities and chart a postwar order. Kyiv pushed back, proposing a pared-down version that preserved core Ukrainian red lines — no territorial concessions, limits on foreign military basing, and security guarantees — and added European input. That revised text is said to be the version Witkoff and Kushner presented in Moscow.
The choice of envoys is itself revealing. Marco Rubio, the U.S. secretary of state in this narrative, was not on the delegation. Instead, the president sent two businessmen and his son-in-law rather than his top diplomat, a decision that highlights both the unconventional conduct of U.S. diplomacy under Trump and the transactional, improvisational nature of the current push for negotiations.
Moscow’s response has been consistent and uncompromising. Russian officials have signaled they want a settlement written largely on their terms — one that would extract territory and leave Ukraine militarily and politically weakened. President Vladimir Putin reinforced that posture in two blunt statements this week: a veiled warning to Europe that it risked confrontation if it pursued more assertive defense policies, and an explicit threat that Russian forces would take Donbas if Ukrainian troops did not withdraw.
Putin’s rhetoric frames the negotiations as zero-sum and makes clear Russia’s aim to preserve maximal gains. That hard line helps explain why, despite repeated meetings and a stream of diplomatic shuttle missions, the substantive gaps remain wide on the central issues: territory, Ukraine’s relation to NATO, the size and posture of its armed forces, and the fate of frozen Russian assets.
Kyiv, for its part, has tried to keep the goal of a negotiated peace tethered to principles of sovereignty and accountability. President Volodymyr Zelensky used a speech to the Oireachtas in Dublin to paint a different, more aspirational picture of what an agreement could mean: “real peace,” he said, not merely a pause between strikes but “guaranteed security and true justice.” That speech, full of gratitude and defiant optimism, sought to rally European lawmakers to sustain support for Ukraine without conceding its territorial integrity.
On the ground, however, the war continues to shape the bargaining space. Moscow’s forces maintain pressure in the east, with both sides trading claims about control of towns such as Pokvorsk. Kyiv reports ongoing combat; Russia released footage it says shows troops in the city center. Those incremental advances — even when disputed — harden positions and increase the political cost, for both leaderships, of unmooring from war aims they have repeatedly framed as existential.
Complicating the diplomatic arithmetic is the risk of U.S. disengagement. Trump has publicly expressed impatience with the pace and posture of talks and repeatedly signaled a desire for a deal that would allow Washington to step back. Russian strategy appears aimed at exactly that result: negotiate long enough to erode Western resolve, secure concessions on the margins, and resume pressure where necessary to improve bargaining leverage.
Indeed, middling outcomes already litter the record of this year’s efforts. Summer talks in Istanbul produced mass prisoner exchanges but left core political questions unresolved. A proposed Trump-Putin summit in Budapest in October was quietly shelved. Fresh U.S.-Ukrainian consultations scheduled in Miami suggest Washington is still trying to keep a negotiated framework alive, but senior Russian officials have confirmed no high-level summit is planned as long as the gaps persist.
Beyond negotiations, Moscow has sought to turn its diplomatic engagements into economic and strategic wins. Putin’s recent travel to India and high-level meetings with leaders there underlined that Russia can still secure substantial bilateral deals even as it faces isolation in parts of Europe and tighter Western financial restrictions.
The consequence is a diplomatic stalemate with creeping battlefield dynamics. Russia’s maximalist demands and continued military pressure make any durable agreement elusive unless one side accepts painful compromises. For Kyiv, accepting loss of territory or significant constraints on defense capacity would be tantamount to defeat. For Moscow, backing down from territorial claims or accountability mechanisms would be politically costly.
That sharp asymmetry helps explain why repeated shuttle diplomacy — however well-intentioned or theatrically publicized — has so far failed to translate into a peace. Talks have become a mechanism for testing limits rather than bridging them, and the cycle of meetings, statements and incremental territorial grabs risks normalizing a slow-motion negotiation that leaves Ukraine weakened and the broader European security order frayed.
If the war is to end with more than a cease-fire, any successful settlement will need three elements that are currently absent: credible enforcement guarantees that reassure Kyiv without empowering Moscow to rewrite borders by force; clear timelines and mechanisms for phased withdrawal or demilitarization tied to verifiable security guarantees; and sustained international backing to prevent a return to coercion once Western attention fades.
Absent those features, the diplomatic process runs the risk of becoming a relief valve for international frustration rather than a roadmap to lasting peace. The repeated missions to Moscow, the exchanges of draft plans and the hopeful rhetoric from Kyiv all matter. But until negotiators address the underlying power asymmetries and offer credible, enforceable guarantees, the outcome is likely to be more negotiation theatre and less durable resolution.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
