Closed-door talks in Moscow between envoys of US President Donald Trump and the Kremlin have ended without a breakthrough, while highlighting the legal and political constraints that surround any settlement of Russia’s war against Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin met special envoy Steil Witkoff and Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, for almost five hours in the Kremlin, but afterwards Russian officials said only that the conversation had been “constructive” and that no compromise had been reached on territory or security.
The Moscow meeting is the latest step in a US-led initiative built around a written peace framework. An initial 28-point plan, drafted with heavy involvement from Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner, circulated in November and drew criticism in Kyiv and several European capitals for envisaging extensive concessions on territory and on Ukraine’s NATO ambitions. Subsequent contacts with Ukrainian officials in Geneva and Florida produced a shortened text of roughly 19–20 points, but the latest version, presented in Moscow, has not been published.
According to one detailed Ukrainian account based on diplomatic briefings, the reworked plan has now been formally classified after earlier leaks, leaving many European officials “unaware of the details”. The same report links this decision to US anger over the circulation of the original 28-point document, with Kyiv blamed in Washington for disclosures regarded as politically damaging.
What has been made public points to a sharp clash over territory. Russian officials say any settlement must reflect what they call “new territorial realities”, backed by 2020 amendments to the Russian constitution that ban the transfer of Russian land to a foreign power. Those amendments have since been used domestically to entrench the annexation of Crimea and four partially occupied Ukrainian regions.
Moscow frequently cites this domestic legal barrier as a reason why it cannot discuss returning territory. Yet the same areas are anchored in Ukrainian law. The Constitution of Ukraine defines the country as a unitary state whose territory, within its internationally recognised borders, is indivisible and inviolable. All regions currently occupied in whole or in part by Russian forces are, in Ukrainian law, integral parts of the state.
In addition, Article 73 of the Ukrainian constitution states that any change to the territory of Ukraine must be decided “exclusively by an all-Ukrainian referendum”. Legal summaries note that a referendum can only approve a law on territorial change once that law has been passed by the Verkhovna Rada, and that signature thresholds or institutional initiatives are required to call such a vote.
Changing the underlying constitutional provisions would itself demand a further, stringent process. Amendments must be reviewed by the Constitutional Court and then approved by at least two-thirds of the Rada. Core chapters on the fundamentals of the constitutional order are additionally protected by a mandatory referendum. Academic analysis of these clauses concludes that any diplomatic arrangement involving the cession or recognition of loss of territory would face “stiff constitutional hurdles” in Ukraine.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly framed his position in those terms. He has stated that the answer to the territorial question “already lies in the Constitution of Ukraine” and that Ukrainians “will not give their land to occupiers”, adding that he has no mandate to dispose of state territory and that any peace plan requiring recognition of Russian annexations would breach the basic law.
The manner in which the current talks are being conducted has raised separate concerns. The Moscow round took place with only US and Russian officials at the table; Ukraine and European Union member states were not present, although any settlement would directly affect Ukraine’s sovereignty and Europe’s security order. Earlier coverage of the plan’s evolution records European governments complaining that they were not given the full text of the original US proposals and were instead reacting to partial briefings and leaks.
At the same time, Mr Putin has used accusations that European allies are “sabotaging” US-led efforts to push for a format in which Washington deals with Moscow “one-to-one”, sidelining both Ukraine and the EU from the negotiating table.
Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner had originally been expected to brief Mr Zelenskyy immediately after their meetings in Moscow, with reports of a planned encounter in an EU country to present the outcome of the talks. That meeting has now been cancelled. Mr Zelenskyy has returned home, while Trump’s envoys undertook instead to fly directly back to Washington to report to Mr Trump.
The combination of a classified text, a narrow bilateral format, the absence of Ukraine and European partners from the Moscow table and the cancelled debrief has drawn attention to a negotiation process that runs up against entrenched constitutional positions on both sides. With Russia and Ukraine each embedding their territorial claims in their basic laws, and with Europe’s security architecture at stake but not directly represented in the room, it remains unclear how a secretive back-channel on its own could deliver a durable settlement.
