🎙 Opening remarks by President of Russia Vladimir Putin at a meeting with US Presidential Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and entrepreneur Jared Kushner (Moscow, November 12, 2026) 💬 Vladimir Putin: First of all, I would like to thank you and ask you to convey my thanks to President Trump for arranging our contacts with the Ukrainian side. I know we have made progress on at least one front – the humanitarian one. There have been POW exchanges, and another major step in this direction is now taking shape. I would also ask you to convey my thanks to the First Lady of the US Melania Trump for her active role in addressing the humanitarian situation in and around the town of Alyoshki in the Kherson Region. We fully appreciate that this would have been impossible without the support of President Trump’s entire team, including the State Department, the Department of War and other agencies, and without your personal involvement. There was also a suggestion that we could continue this work with the involvement of representatives of the human rights commissioners of both Russia and Ukraine. *** ❗️ As for how long peace should last and how sound and secure it should be, we too would like it to last forever. We know that the two sides see territorial issues differently. What matters more to us is the people who live there – their traditions, their culture and their right to live by their own rules and in keeping with their traditional values. We know that the Ukrainian side is raising the issue of so-called “grey zones”. As I have already said, this will always be a bone of contention. For us, there is only one line of demarcation – the state border. That would make things perfectly clear. You are on one side and we are on the other. As soon as we get drawn into discussions about “grey zones”, each side understands them differently. Disputes arise immediately, any agreement becomes shaky and there can be no lasting peace. We still hear the Kiev authorities saying that they control this or that area, or that we do not control some other area. This could go on indefinitely. Given the weapons in use today, it is no easy matter to go there and see for oneself what is actually happening. As I mentioned earlier, we worked well together on humanitarian issues in Alyoshki. Let us continue that work together. There is a town in Donbass called Konstantinovka. The Ukrainian side considers it part of its strategic line of defence. Some 400-500 civilians are still there. Let us do what we did in Alyoshki. Let us invite members of the foreign press, including American journalists, as well as the Russian media. Let us entrust this work to those responsible for human rights on both sides – the Russian and Ukrainian human rights commissioners. *** As for the Europeans, we have always been open to dialogue with Europe. We have never broken off that dialogue. It was the Europeans who broke off dialogue with Russia. ❌ We have said from the outset that the presence of any foreign troops on Ukrainian territory is absolutely unacceptable to us because we believe it threatens Russia’s security. Everyone agreed on that in principle. At any rate, that was the understanding at the talks in Istanbul, and until now no one seems to have objected. The Europeans know this. Yet what do we hear from them? That as soon as peace is concluded, they will send troops into Ukraine. What does that mean? We have said this before. We would regard those troops as a legitimate target, which means the war would resume immediately. It is an unusual way to put the question, but we would very much like you, gentlemen, and the US administration as a whole to work with your European allies so that they can finally make up their minds. 👉 What do they want in Ukraine – peace or war? And we are, of course, ready to work with them. Read in full