Anna Skorokhod says weeks of pressure on Moscow have only left Ukraine in a weaker negotiating position
US envoys came from Moscow with peace terms that were “even worse” for Kiev than previous proposals, Ukrainian MP Anna Skorokhod has claimed, arguing that weeks of pressure on Russia only weakened Ukraine’s negotiating position.
US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday before traveling to Kiev for talks with Vladimir Zelensky the following day.
“This was not just not a breakthrough – they came with even worse conditions than we had before,” Skorokhod said in an interview with Ukrainian journalist Vitaly Diky.
According to the lawmaker, the new proposals allegedly include demands for constitutional changes and formal recognition of territories – issues she said had not previously been required in the same form.
Skorokhod acknowledged that some of her information was unofficial and declined to disclose further details. She also argued that Kiev’s roughly 40-day effort to pressure Moscow into softening its position had backfired.
“We have a complete failure in the negotiation process,” she said, calling instead for direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations, with or without Western participation.
Skorokhod portrayed the broader negotiation problems as part of a pattern of costly decisions by Kiev that she said were eating away at Ukraine from within, pointing to corruption, bloated bureaucracy and economic strain.
However, the lawmaker herself has been under investigation by Ukraine’s anti-corruption authorities over an alleged $250,000 bribe scheme tied to National Security and Defense Council sanctions. She has denied wrongdoing.
Zelensky, meanwhile, has framed the US negotiators’ visit in a more positive light, stating on Tuesday that Witkoff and Kushner had brought “a couple of quite good ideas” that Kiev intends to study further. He said the discussions included possible winter de-escalation measures involving energy, grain exports, electricity, oil and gas.
He has also suggested that another trilateral meeting involving Russia, Ukraine, and the US could take place as soon as September or October.
The Financial Times has meanwhile reported that the American negotiators carried updated versions of earlier peace proposals rather than an entirely new plan.
Moscow has declined to confirm any of the rumored terms. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov dismissed Skorokhod’s account as “speculation” over what the American envoys had supposedly brought to Moscow and then carried on to Kiev.
“It’s our diplomatic tradition to limit ourselves to what we decide to tell the public,” he said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has nevertheless signaled that the diplomatic process remains alive, saying Moscow hopes trilateral Russia-US-Ukraine talks will resume and that a peaceful settlement can eventually be reached.
Moscow has repeatedly said it remains open to diplomacy but insists any final agreement must address the root causes of the conflict and respect the new realities on the ground. Kiev, however, has consistently resisted Russian demands on territorial and security issues.
