Putin threatens Europe with war if it wants one, as Ukraine peace talks falter

Peace talks held between the U.S. and Russia on Tuesday failed to deliver a breakthrough with Russian President Vladimir Putin ahead of discussions doubling down on threats toward Europe, saying Russia was "ready" for war with the Continent.

U.S. President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and son-in-law Jared Kushner had traveled to Moscow for talks with Putin and his closest aides on a draft peace plan aimed at ending the almost four-year war in Ukraine.

The talks lasted five hours, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the discussions, saying the meeting focused on a U.S.-drafted peace plan and was "very useful, constructive, and highly informative" but that there was more work to be done.

"We agreed on some things ... while others caused criticism, and the President [Putin] also made no secret of our critical, even negative, attitude toward a number of proposals. But the main thing is that we had a very useful discussion," Ushakov said, in comments translated by NBC News.

It's unclear which peace plan was presented to the Russians after an initial 28-point plan, secretly devised by the U.S. and Russia, was presented to Ukraine a few weeks ago.

Kyiv and its European allies hastily amended that plan, whittling it down to 19 proposals, with Ukrainian officials travelling to Florida last weekend for more talks on the proposals.

Russia and Ukraine are miles apart when it comes to central elements of a framework peace agreement, with Moscow demanding that Kyiv cede partially occupied territory in the east of the country to Russia, and disagreeing over Western-backed security guarantees for Ukraine.

Putin aide Ushakov said Tuesday that both sides had discussed a 27-point plan and had received more documents from the U.S. side, although he did not elaborate as to what those contained. He added that Russia and the U.S. had agreed to not disclose details of the talks.

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said it would be incorrect to say Putin had rejected the proposals put to him by the U.S. delegation.

"A direct exchange of views took place yesterday for the first time," Peskov said, in comments cited by the Reuters news agency. "Some things were accepted, some things were marked as unacceptable — this is a normal working process of finding a compromise."