MOSCOW, December 3. /TASS/. Russia and the US discuss the controversies of a peace plan to resolve the Ukraine conflict; experts doubt the US will carry out an invasion of Venezuela; and Moscow needs to give a tough response to attacks threatening the security of navigation in the Black Sea. These stories topped Wednesday’s newspaper headlines across Russia.
Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff lasted five hours, with Kremlin Aide Yury Ushakov describing the meeting as very useful and substantive. The specific wording of the peace plan was not discussed, but the parties did touch upon the territorial issue, Izvestia notes.
The talks are unlikely to secure rapid progress because ahead of the Putin-Witkoff meeting, Ukraine did not seem willing to make concessions on the issues that Moscow sees as crucial, including the reduction of the Ukrainian armed forces, their withdrawal from the territories they hold and the need to secure Ukraine’s non-bloc status, Tigran Meloyan, an analyst with the Center for Mediterranean Studies at the Higher School of Economics, believes. "We are in a situation where it will take more than one round of talks before Kiev recognizes the current state of affairs and accepts Moscow’s peace terms, which may only grow tougher every time," the expert pointed out.
