Ukraine war live: Trump envoy Steve Witkoff set to meet Vladimir Putin in Moscow amid US push for peace deal

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Amid the intensified diplomatic push to end the Ukraine war, Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the Kremlin’s claims of battlefield advances are exaggerated and that Kyiv’s priorities remain security guarantees, sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Ukrainian president also insisted that Russia must not get rewards for its aggression on Ukraine.

As Warren Murray reports in today’s Ukraine war briefing, Zelenskyy said in Paris that he hoped to have talks with Donald Trump to discuss next steps once Steve Witkoff was back from his talks in Russia.

Zelenskyy also said that after revisions the peace plan circulating between Ukraine, Russia and Washington “looks better” and the work would continue.

But as mentioned, the European Union is warning that the Putin-Wifkoff talks will again pile pressure on Ukraine to make concessions. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said:

In order to have peace, we shouldn’t lose focus that it’s actually Russia who has started this war and Russia that is continuing this war and Russia that is really targeting civilians, civilian infrastructure every single day to cause as much damage as possible.

The EU’s Kaja Kallas. Photograph: Olivier Hoslet/EPA

You can read the full war briefing here:

The Kremlin has said Vladimir Putin will meet Steve Witkoff for their talks on Tuesday afternoon. It’s now approaching 9.10am local time in Moscow.

Their meeting would take “in the second half of the day”, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, while refusing to be drawn on Russia’s red lines, saying megaphone diplomacy was not helpful.

As a reminder, the talks also come against backdrop of Witkoff coming under fire recently after reportedly advising a Kremlin official last month that achieving peace in Ukraine would require Russia gaining control of Donetsk and potentially a separate territorial exchange, according to a recording of their conversation obtained by Bloomberg.

In the 14 October phone call with Yuri Ushakov, the top foreign policy aide to Putin, Witkoff said he believed the land concessions were necessary while advising Ushakov to congratulate Trump and frame discussions more optimistically.

As Joseph Gedeon and Hugo Lowell reported, the recording provided a direct insight into Witkoff’s negotiating approach and appeared to reveal the origins of the controversial US 28-point peace proposal that emerged earlier in November.

Their story can be seen here:

Opening summary

Hello and welcome to our live coverage of war in Ukraine as Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff is to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow amid Washington’s push to reach a peace deal.

Witkoff’s trip comes after he led a US delegation in talks with Ukraine at the weekend in Florida, three and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion.

The US has been upbeat about the prospects of reaching a deal to end the war, with White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt telling reporters on Monday: “I think the administration feels very optimistic.”

But Kyiv’s European allies have expressed concern that the US peace plan gives too much to Moscow’s maximalist demands. The EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, said she feared the Putin-Witkoff talks on Tuesday would pile pressure on Ukraine to make concessions.

Witkoff – Trump’s business partner turned roving envoy – was expected to arrive in Russia with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. The Kremlin did not say if Kushner would also attend the meeting with Putin.

In other developments:

• Russian military commanders told Putin in comments reported on Monday that Russian forces had captured the frontline Ukrainian towns of Pokrovsk – a key logistics hub – and Vovchansk and were advancing elsewhere, which the Russian president hailed as successes to enable further gains. Ukrainian officials have made no acknowledgement that either place has fallen into Russian hands.

Pokrovsk in a file picture. The embattled eastern town has been described as the gateway to the Donbas region. Photograph: Julia Kochetova/The Guardian

• Zelenskyy said on Monday that Russia must not be rewarded for its invasion. “We also need to ensure that Russia itself does not perceive anything it could consider as a reward for this war,” the Ukrainian said a press conference with the French president, Emmanuel Macron.

• The Ukrainian president also held calls with a dozen other leaders, including the UK prime minister, Keir Starmer, and the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, as he sought to rally support from European allies. “Peace must become truly durable,” Zelenskyy wrote on X. “The war must end as soon as possible.”

• Ukraine’s negotiator Rustem Umerov said “significant progress” had been achieved in two days of talks with Witkoff and other US officials in Florida but that more work was needed on “challenging” issues.

• The Moscow talks also come as Kyiv has faced headwinds from a corruption scandal that has rocked Zelenskyy’s inner circle and forced the dismissal last week of his top negotiator and chief of staff, Andriy Yermak.

• A Russian missile attack killed four people and wounded nearly two dozen others on Monday in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, the regional governor said.