Kushner questions Putin’s claim Russia can seize all of Donbas within months

Filed 1h ago · Via NV · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Jason Krüger for Wikimedia · CC BY-SA 4.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

The New York Times reportedted that U.S. envoy Jared Kushner challenged Vladimir Putin's claim that Russian forces could seize all of Ukraine's Donbas within months during a Sept. 5 Moscow meeting, pointing out Putin made the identical prediction a year earlier. Putin also told envoys Russia was prepared to strike Ukrainian energy infrastructure, raising the prospect of a difficult winter.

Kushner and fellow envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Kyiv the next day for their first visit as part of the diplomatic push. Trump spoke with Putin on Sept. 8 and called it a great conversation, expressing hope Zelenskyy would also agree to a deal, though he did not speak with Zelenskyy that day.

At a Kyiv conference, Kushner said Putin had outlined the territorial line Moscow wants, acknowledged Ukraine will not withdraw to it, and said Washington was seeking a creative solution. The Donbas territorial dispute remains the central obstacle to restarting three-way negotiations.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Asking a man who has been wrong about his own timeline for a year running whether he might be wrong again is not exactly hardball diplomacy, but at least somebody wrote it down. A creative solution is a phrase that sounds good in a press room and means nothing on a map. Until Moscow moves off that line, all the great conversations in the world are just two men agreeing to talk again later.

Source: Read the original at NV → Scored: Waltz of the Carnies · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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