Saturday’s talks in Moscow lasted three hours and were held behind closed doors at Putin’s official residence in the heart of the Russian capital, according to Russian state media. Details are still emerging, but both sides have made broadly positive comments without going into specifics. Putin’s adviser Yuri Ushakov described the talks as “constructive and extremely frank.” Ushakov also said that “the tangible progress of the Russian military in the combat zone was noted” and that it was recognized that talks were necessary to address “the root causes of the conflict.” Despite an escalation of Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, including kyiv, Russian ground forces have made very slow progress throughout most of the conflict, incurring huge casualties. Russia still controls about a fifth of Ukrainian territory, areas it seized in 2022. The talks come after Russia and Ukraine have stepped up airstrikes in recent months. Ukraine says it has had difficulty repelling ballistic missile attacks due to a lack of interceptor missiles, while kyiv has focused its strikes on Russian economic infrastructure targets, particularly oil facilities.
