All eyes on Russia as it weighs Ukraine peace plan with caution
PUBLISHED WED, NOV 26 20256:00
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KEY POINTS
• U.S. presidential envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
• But Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov commented Wednesday that the Russian officials had not discussed the purported peace plan when talks were held with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
• Ushakov also said Russia had not yet officially received a revised peace plan for Ukraine.
All eyes are now on Russia’s response to a fledgling peace plan to end the war in Ukraine after Kyiv appeared willing to move forward with a U.S.-backed framework.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow next week to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters Wednesday that “the content [of the U.S. plan] will be discussed,” at the meeting, and claimed Russian officials had not discussed a U.S.-backed plan when talks were held with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
“We, the Russian side, have not yet discussed any documents with anyone specifically … We’ve agreed to a meeting with Mr. Witkoff. I hope he won’t be alone. Other representatives of the U.S. team working on the Ukrainian dossier will be there,” he said in comments translated by NBC News and reported by state news agency TASS.
Ushakov said Russia had not yet officially received the U.S.-backed draft deal for Ukraine but had seen an unofficial version.
Regarding the plan it had seen, Ushakov said the Kremlin viewed some aspects of the plan positively while “several of its points require serious analysis.”
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said Moscow welcomed U.S. efforts on peace proposals but said “there are no concessions on key issues on the Ukraine settlement,” in comments reported by Reuters on Wednesday.
Earlier today, Putin’s Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov warned against jumping to conclusions regarding an end to the war, which Russia launched when it invaded Ukraine in Feb. 2022.
“Wait. It’s too early to say that,” Peskov told reporters, state news agency TASS reported, when asked whether this was the closest Russia and Ukraine had ever been to concluding a peace agreement.
CNBC has contacted the Kremlin for further comment and is awaiting a response.
Ukraine on board, tentatively
Multiple outlets reported Tuesday that a Ukrainian delegation that had held talks with U.S. officials in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday appeared to tentatively support the basis of a U.S.-backed peace plan — though key details remained unresolved.
Reports from ABC News and CBS News both cited an unnamed U.S. official who said that the Ukrainians “have agreed” to the deal, while noting that some points still need to be ironed out. It was not clear if the same U.S. official was quoted in both stories.
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said later Tuesday that Kyiv was ready to advance the peace framework, Reuters reported, citing a copy of a speech the president gave to a coalition of allied countries.
President Donald Trump said at the White House on Tuesday, “I think we’re getting very close to a deal. We’ll find out … I think we’re making progress.”
In a Truth Social post later Tuesday afternoon, Trump said, “there are only a few remaining points of disagreement.”
Flurry of talks
Trump’s post came several days after U.S. officials met with a Ukrainian delegation in Geneva last weekend for talks that resulted in significant revisions to Washington’s initially proffered 28-point peace plan.
https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/26/russia-responds-to-fledgling-ukraine-peace-plan.html