Putin says he’s ready to talk, and his price hasn’t changed. After meeting Witkoff, he agreed in principle to resume US–Russia–Ukraine talks after 10 November.
Hours later, Russia hit Kyiv with a massive missile attack.
The main sticking point is land. A Kremlin-linked source told Reuters that Putin wants the rest of Donbas, the roughly 11% still held by Ukraine, so he can present it at home as a victory.
Putin himself now calls eastern Ukraine “historical Russian land”, and the land is only part of it.
Moscow also wants Ukraine to shrink its military and pledge never to join NATO. Its formal terms go further still: withdrawal from all of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, including areas Russia has never held, plus a ban on foreign troops in Ukraine. Kyiv refuses to give up land it still holds, but has signalled that a freeze along the current front lines could work.