President Vladimir Putin told European capitals on Tuesday that any military clash with Russia would end quickly and decisively, issuing the warning just hours before two senior envoys of United States President Donald Trump arrived in Moscow for talks.
The remarks came as Western governments reacted to leaked United States draft peace ideas that unsettled Kyiv and its supporters. Those proposals appeared last week and suggested concessions on NATO, control of Ukrainian regions and limits on Ukraine’s military. European governments responded with their own peace outline while United States and Ukrainian negotiators said in Geneva that they had created an updated peace framework.
Putin accused Europe of trying to interfere with Washington’s efforts. He said European states had excluded themselves from earlier discussions and were now attempting to obstruct progress by presenting terms that Moscow considered impossible.
“They are on the side of war,” he said. “We can clearly see that all these changes are aimed at only one thing. To block the peace process and to make demands that Russia cannot accept.”
He added that if European states chose to begin a war with Russia, the outcome would be so swift that “there would be no one to negotiate with in Europe”.
In the same remarks, Putin said Russia might cut Ukraine off from the sea in retaliation for drone attacks on Russian tankers in the Black Sea.
As he spoke, Trump adviser Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner were seen walking across Red Square with Russian investment representative Kirill Dmitriev before their planned meeting with Putin inside the Kremlin.
In Dublin, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the stakes of the Moscow talks were extremely high.
“There will be no easy solutions,” he said. “It is important that everything is fair and open so that no one makes decisions behind Ukraine’s back.”
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Putin said discussions so far were not a draft treaty but a group of ideas that “could be the basis for future agreements”. Moscow has insisted that if Kyiv refuses any settlement, Russian forces will expand their operations and take additional Ukrainian land.
A Russian official familiar with the talks told Reuters that the efforts of the Trump administration represented the strongest chance for an end to the conflict since negotiations collapsed soon after the invasion in 2022.
Moscow also claimed a military success ahead of the visit. In video released a day earlier, Putin praised commanders for what they described as the capture of the eastern city of Pokrovsk after a long campaign.
Ukraine’s military told Reuters that its troops were still holding the northern sector of the city and had launched attacks on Russian units in the southern part.
United States officials estimate that more than one point two million troops from both sides have been killed or wounded since the start of the conflict, though neither Kyiv nor Moscow discloses its losses.
Russian troops now hold more than nineteen percent of Ukraine according to pro Kyiv maps, a figure that has risen only slightly in two years although Moscow has advanced this year faster than at any time since 2022.
Since the draft United States proposals surfaced, European governments have pushed back against what they fear might become a settlement that heavily favors Russia. They argue that such a deal could open the door to United States business ties in Russian energy and minerals and even return Moscow to the G8.
Russian conditions include a promise that Ukraine will never join NATO, limits on Ukrainian armed forces, and Moscow’s control of Crimea, Donbas, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson. Ukraine says accepting these terms would amount to surrender and leave the country exposed to further Russian aggression.
