Following extended discussions in Moscow between Putin and the US President’s special envoy Steve Witkoff, joined by senior adviser Jared Kushner, Russian officials stated that the dialogue was constructive. A Kremlin aide acknowledged that compromises had not yet been finalized, but emphasized that the talks represented an important beginning in aligning perspectives.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov reiterated that it would be inaccurate to say the proposals were rejected in full. Instead, he described the talks as a direct exchange of views, with some ideas accepted and others deemed unsuitable. This, he noted, was part of a normal negotiation process in which both sides work through disagreements to identify shared ground.

Peskov highlighted Russia’s appreciation for the diplomatic efforts being made by the US administration. He added that while the Kremlin values transparency, ongoing discussions would not be accompanied by detailed public updates, as discretion was essential to maintaining a productive environment for negotiations.

According to Peskov, expert-level teams from both sides are now working through the details of the proposals. These discussions are expected to produce tangible results that will pave the way for potential future engagements at the highest political level. The structured approach indicates a deliberate attempt to build a durable foundation for peace efforts.

The developments come amid a series of overlapping proposals from different international actors. A previous set of 28 US draft peace points circulated in November, prompting concerns among Ukrainian and European officials who felt they were overly accommodating to Moscow’s demands. European states later drafted their own counter-proposal, while new discussions in Geneva led the US and Ukraine to assemble what they described as an updated and refined peace framework.

Putin expressed unease with certain European suggestions, stating that some of the ideas were completely unacceptable to Russia. However, the ongoing talks illustrate that Moscow remains engaged in the broader diplomatic process, even while disagreements persist. The Russian president’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, said the discussions with Witkoff covered a series of documents, including previous sets of proposals and new additions.

The outlines of the peace frameworks under discussion have not been disclosed publicly. Nonetheless, the continuity of dialogue and the acknowledgment that some US ideas have been accepted signal a potentially meaningful shift in tone. Both sides appear committed to repeated meetings if necessary, reflecting an understanding of the complexity of the issues at stake.

The diplomatic momentum suggests a shared desire to identify avenues for de-escalation. As expert teams continue to review, revise and refine proposals, the possibility of creating a balanced and practical peace framework becomes increasingly viable. While challenges remain, the reaffirmation of dialogue underscores a broader recognition that sustained communication is essential for progress.

In a global climate where conflicts carry far-reaching consequences, this renewed engagement between the US and Russia may help stabilize the international environment. With both parties expressing readiness for continued negotiations, the path toward a workable agreement remains open, setting the stage for future diplomatic breakthroughs.

Putin made the comments during talks with UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed al-Nahyan on the sidelines of Russia’s annual economic forum in St Petersburg, where UAE companies are prominent unlike many Western counterparts who have stayed away because of the Ukraine conflict.

The UAE, like Saudi Arabia, is a member of the OPEC+ oil alliance that includes Russia and it has maintained good ties with Moscow despite Western pressure to help isolate and punish it for sending tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022.

The UAE has not joined Western sanctions against Moscow, while Dubai, long popular with Russian tourists, has become a magnet for Russian business people over the past 16 months, with busy direct flights to Moscow and expanding economic ties.

“I know that the Emirates’ economy and the social sphere are developing really actively under your leadership and, in this sense, for us of course the Emirates is a very good and comfortable partner,” Putin told the UAE president.

“Relations between Russia and the Emirates are developing really successfully,” he added.

Prisoner Exchange

The UAE has helped mediate at least one sensitive prisoner exchange between Russia and Ukraine.

“(The exchanges) matter to specific people, and that is always the most important thing, so thank you very much for that as well,” Putin said.

Sheikh Mohammed, who called Putin “my friend” according to a Kremlin transcript, said his nation was ready to help further on Ukraine.

“… if you think that the Emirates can play a role in the stabilisation of the situation there, in humanitarian issues – we are ready to assist in every way possible,” it cited him as telling Putin.

“The UAE continues to support all efforts aimed at reaching a political solution through dialogue & diplomacy…,” he tweeted separately after the meeting.

Sheikh Mohammed said he hoped the UAE could welcome one million Russian tourists this year.

Moscow is promoting renegotiating the 1998 Adana Agreement between Ankara and Damascus.

Following the remarks of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who admitted the existence of intelligence cooperation with the Syrian regime, signs of a Turkish-Syrian reconciliation have begun to appear, although its essence are yet unknown.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which the Syrian government sees as a “separatist force” and Ankara views as a branch of the banned and terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), represent a shared enemy for both countries.

Erdogan’s statements were preceded by the statement of Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu about Turkey’s readiness to cooperate with the Syrian regime if it stands on the same line in confronting the SDF.

On 27 July, Cavusoglu stated that his country was fully prepared to support the Syrian regime in confronting the YPG/PKK organizations, saying that his country had previously held talks with Iran regarding the expulsion of “terrorists” from the region, adding, “We will provide all kinds of political support for the work of the (Syrian) regime in this regard,” according to the Anadolu Agency.

The Turkish Foreign Minister assured that the Syrian regime has the natural right to remove the “terrorist organization” from its territory, but it is not right for the moderate opposition (the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army) to be viewed by it as “terrorist.”

The International response was promising for Turkey, as not a single country issued any condemnation or denunciation of the Turkish statements of political support for the Syrian regime at a time when Washington used to come out with a statement denouncing any cooperation or coordination with the regime, as it did previously with Jordan and the UAE.

Erdogan’s had a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Tehran summit that took place last July, related to Russian-Turkish coordination and cooperation with the Syrian regime ,and military operations against SDF.

During summit, it appeared that Turkey will no longer demands the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime in Damascus. 

Moscow wants to host a series of senior security meetings between Turkish and Syrian officials to investigate the possibility of fulfilling Turkish demands without Ankara having to carry out a ground invasion of Syria. And the Russian capital hosted those meetings over the past few days. Moscow is promoting renegotiating the 1998 Adana Agreement between Ankara and Damascus.

Russia wants to help the two countries sign a second version of the agreement to reflect the new Syrian reality and allow for Syrian-Turkish security coordination.

This shift in power in regional and international relations is significant. Moscow also needed Ankara in Syria to counter the American influence in this region. 

Hafsa Akram is a Pakistan-based independent Political expert. She also writes for Midstone Centre for International Affairs.

Khamenei thinks that by relying on Russia and China, he can get out of this isolation and continue to survive.  

While the world’s democracies have unanimously condemned and taken a stand against Russia’s recent invasion of Ukraine, the Iranian government has openly defended the Russian invasion and isolated itself further and further in the world.

First, Iranian Foreign Minister Amir Abdullahian took to Twitter to blame NATO for provoking the attack and somehow legitimized and justified the attack. Then, in an unprecedented move, President Ebrahim Raisi called Putin and implicitly supported Russia’s move, condemning NATO expansion, saying “NATO expansion is a serious threat to the stability and security of independent states in various regions”.

He then added: “We hope that what is happening will end in the interests of the nations and the region”, which clearly meant the fall of the Ukrainian government. On Tuesday, March 1, at a time when the war has claimed thousands of lives and many cities in Ukraine have been destroyed, all world leaders have called for an immediate end to the war, and many countries have condemned the Russian invasion in a meeting of UN General Assembly, Ali Khamenei, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, who spoke on the anniversary of the Prophet Mohammad’s prophecy, again blamed the United States for the war and refused to condemn the Russian invasion.

In a blatant lie, while the whole world praises the resistance of the Ukrainian people, who even stood empty-handed in front of the attacking armor vehicles, Khamenei said: “If people had entered the scene in Ukraine, the government would not be like this, but because the people did not accept the government they did not enter and such a situation has occurred”.

The recent stances of the leaders of the Iranian regime clearly show that they have distanced themselves from their neither Eastern nor Western policy, which they promoted as their policy at the beginning of the revolution, and are rapidly moving towards dependence on the East. First, they signed a 25-year cooperation agreement with China, which was implemented in January, and according to many experts, with this agreement, Iran will depend on China in many areas, and China will gain control of many of Iran’s resources. Following this policy, we witnessed Ebrahim Raissi travel to Moscow last month.

Although he was faced with a cold reception by Putin that even the smallest formalities of welcoming a head of state were not performed for him, Khamenei still hoped to reach an accord on a 20-year cooperation agreement with Russia, apparently, it was not successful, and no contract was signed. 

The question is why Khamenei, even though most Iranians are opposed to such closeness to China and Russia, has leaned so much on the east that he is willing to give a lot of concessions to these countries, and in the current situation takes a position in favor of Russia in confrontation with the world?

The fact is that Khamenei is facing a very precarious and fragile situation inside Iran. On the one hand, due to a completely bankrupt economy due to institutionalized corruption in all of the government’s branches, more than 60% of the population is living below the poverty line, and a quarter of Iran’s population lives in shantytowns in miserable conditions due to inability to pay the high cost of living in metropolitan areas.

Inflation above 50% and unemployment have broken the backs of most people, which as a result many of them have nothing to lose. Continuous protest rallies of different segments of the population, which are held daily in different cities, have become a constant phenomenon, in some cases, such as farmers’ uprisings in the provinces of Khuzestan (southwest) or Isfahan (central Iran) where thousands took to the streets.

Eventually, with the bloody repression of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), in each case, dozens of protesters were killed and wounded by direct fire, and many of them were arrested, these protests were temporarily silenced. This situation has turned Iran into a barrel of gunpowder that could explode at any moment.

Khamenei had experienced this in November 2019, when in a short time people took to the streets in more than 200 cities in Iran and set fire to many government institutions such as banks and police stations, and if Khamenei By violently killing more than 1,500 demonstrators in the streets and arresting another 12,000, had not suppressed it, most probably would lead to the overthrow of his regime.

On the other hand, since Khamenei seeks his survival in his dual policy of acquiring the atomic bomb and meddling in the affairs of other countries such as Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and Yemen, he is not willing to simply give them up. As a result, the Iranian regime is now isolated in the free world. Therefore, Khamenei thinks that by relying on Russia and China, he can get out of this isolation and continue to survive.  

But history has shown that no dictatorial regime that the people want to overthrow can continue to survive for long, and Iranians are waiting for the spark that will ignite and explode the barrel of gunpowder of society and overthrow Khamenei’s regime.

Cyrus Yaqubi is a Research Analyst and Iranian Foreign Affairs Commentator investigating the social issues and economy of the Middle East countries in general and Iran in particular.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in this section are their own and do not reflect Milli Chronicle’s point-of-view.

Nagorno-Karabakh is a mountainous and heavily-forested patch of land that sits inside the territory of ex-Soviet Azerbaijan.

Under international law, Nagorno-Karabakh is recognised as part of Azerbaijan. But the ethnic Armenians who make up the vast majority of the population reject Azeri rule. They have been running their own affairs, with support from Armenia, since Azerbaijan’s troops were pushed out in a war in the 1990s.

Long-standing ethnic tensions in the region between Christian Armenians and their mainly Muslim neighbours flared in Nagorno-Karabakh in the late 1980s. Hostilities this year have been the worst since 2016, when intense fighting killed dozens and threatened to escalate into all-out war.

Such a conflict could drag in the big regional powers, Russia and Turkey. Moscow has a defence alliance with Armenia, while Ankara backs its ethnic Turkic kin in Azerbaijan.

In the 1980s, the territory was within the borders of the then-Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, though most decisions were made in Moscow.

As the Soviet Union began to break up, it became apparent that Nagorno-Karabakh would come under the direct rule of the Azeri government. The ethnic Armenians did not accept that.

Sectarian conflict erupted, escalating into war in 1991 between Azerbaijan’s troops and Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia. Thousands of people were killed and hundreds of thousands were displaced.

Authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh declared independence that year but it was not widely recognised internationally, leaving the ethnic Armenian administration there in a state of legal limbo and under blockade from Azerbaijan’s government.

By 1994, when an internationally brokered ceasefire was agreed, ethnic Armenians controlled almost all of Nagorno-Karabakh, plus some surrounding Azeri districts that gave them a buffer zone and land bridge connecting their region to Armenia.

Azerbaijan vowed to take back control over the territory, using military force if necessary.

International efforts over the years to find a lasting peace settlement, involving France, the United States and Russia as mediators, have failed to clinch a deal.