Kushner challenges Putin's claim Russia can capture Donbas within months
Jared Kushner (photo: president.gov.ua)
Russian leader Vladimir Putin told US negotiators during a meeting in Moscow that Russian forces would capture Donbas within several months, but Jared Kushner pushed back on his claim, The New York Times reports.
According to the media outlet, when US President Donald Trump's envoys met with Putin at the Kremlin in early September, the Russian leader appeared confident.
Putin told the US envoys that Russian forces would finally capture all of Ukraine's Donbas within several months.
He also claimed that Russia was prepared to launch powerful strikes on Ukraine's energy system, creating the conditions for a difficult winter.
Kushner, however, pushed back, reminding Putin that he had made the same claim a year earlier. He questioned whether they would return a year later only to hear the same prediction again and suggested there was no reason to waste another year.
The NYT notes that this exchange reflects the complexity of the situation that has emerged after more than a year and a half of Trump's attempts to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
Witkoff and Kushner's visits to Moscow and Kyiv
US President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner recently traveled to Moscow in an attempt to make progress toward ending the war in Ukraine. There, they held talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.
After the meeting, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that the talks lasted more than three hours and were substantive and constructive.
According to Ushakov, the US side presented a number of ideas on possible ways to end the war. At the same time, he said that Trump administration representatives promised to take Putin's assessments into account during talks with Ukraine.
Following the talks in Moscow, Witkoff and Kushner visited Kyiv, where they met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
It later emerged that Ukraine and Russia could announce a limited ceasefire this winter. In particular, a mutual pause in strikes on energy infrastructure is being considered.
Kushner had also previously identified the main obstacle in the negotiations. According to him, the US has prepared the main part of an agreement to end the war, but Kyiv does not agree to Putin's territorial demands regarding Donbas.
