Russia and Ukraine said Wednesday they were ready for more talks with the United States to end almost four years of war, after US envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner left the Kremlin with no breakthrough on a peace deal.Russian leader Vladimir Putin’s talks with the US officials ended in the early hours of Wednesday, with neither side announcing concrete progress.The Kremlin said that no “compromise” had been found on the crucial question of territories.The morning after the meeting, the Kremlin said it had told the Americans what was “unacceptable” to them.Witkoff and Kushner brought an updated version of a US plan to end Europe’s bloodiest war in 80 years, after the US held talks with Kyiv.The Kremlin insisted it was incorrect to say Putin had rejected the plan in its entirety, and that Russia was still committed to diplomacy — despite the Russian leader issuing a stark warning that Moscow was “ready” to fight Europe if it wanted war.”We are still ready to meet as many times as is needed to reach a peace settlement,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov.Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelensky says any deal should offer lasting peace and ensure Moscow does not attack again.- NATO ministers meeting -As the Americans returned from Moscow, Zelensky announced that his top negotiator Rustem Umerov and army ground chief Andriy Gnatov were headed for Brussels, where NATO foreign ministers were gathering.They will also travel to the US to meet with Trump’s envoys, Zelensky said on social media.Washington’s Steve Witkoff has held a string of Kremlin meetings but has so far not met Ukrainian officials.NATO foreign ministers are due to discuss Washington’s push to end the fighting in Brussels. “Ukrainian representatives will brief their colleagues in Europe on what is known following yesterday’s contacts by the American side in Moscow,” Zelensky said on social media. The fresh talks come as NATO pledges to buy hundreds of millions of dollars worth of US arms for Kyiv. “The peace talks are ongoing, that’s good, but at the same time, we have to make sure that whilst they take place — and we are not sure when they will end — that Ukraine is in the strongest possible position to keep the fight going,” NATO chief Mark Rutte said. – Kremlin blasts Europe – European countries have expressed fears Washington and Moscow will reach agreements without them, and have spent the last weeks trying to amend the US plan so that it does not force Kyiv to capitulate. In Moscow, tensions with Europe were palpable.Putin delivered an exceptionally hawkish statement on Tuesday ahead of meeting the Americans.”We are not planning to go to war with Europe, but if Europe wants to and starts, we are ready right now,” he said.His spokesman on Wednesday accused Europe of being “obsessed with inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia”.Moscow has felt emboldened in recent months by the growing pace of its army’s advance in Ukraine.Earlier this week, Russia claimed control of east Ukrainian hub of Pokrovsk.Ukraine on Tuesday said that fighting for the town — which had 60,000 people before Moscow launched its 2022 offensive — was ongoing. Moscow on Wednesday claimed another village in the Zaporizhzhia region, where it has also made considerable advances in recent weeks. Russia occupies large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine.Putin has insisted that Kyiv surrender the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow has claimed as its own for any peace deal to be possible.

Honduran ex-president Juan Orlando Hernandez is not planning any immediate return to his country due to threats for his life, his wife told AFP, after the former leader received a surprise pardon from President Donald Trump. From her home in Tegucigalpa, Ana Garcia thanked the US president, saying the pardon put an end to an “injustice” that she blamed in part on former Democratic President Joe Biden.”He’s not thinking about returning to public or political life, but rather a private life where we can have time as a family and return to our professions,” she said. They are both lawyers. “The situation for him isn’t easy due to the insecurity, the threats against his life, and the constant hate speech this government has directed against him,” Garcia said.Juan Orlando Hernandez was released from a West Virginia prison on Monday after Trump’s pardon and just days after Honduras held s presidential election. He had been sentenced last year to more than four decades behind bars.”We’re just now processing the news. I hadn’t been able to see him, to speak freely with him” Garcia added.Hernandez was convicted of helping to smuggle hundreds of tons of cocaine into the United States starting in 2004, long before he became president.During his two terms at the helm of Honduras from 2014 to 2022, Hernandez was thought of as a loyal ally in the US-led war on drugs.But prosecutors charged Hernandez with using drug money to enrich himself, finance his political campaigns and commit electoral fraud in the 2013 and 2017 elections.In March 2024, he was convicted and in June that year sentenced to 45 years behind bars.Hernandez “has been, according to many people that I greatly respect, treated very harshly and unfairly,” said Trump, whose administration has killed dozens of alleged but unproven drug smugglers in boat strikes in Latin America.Garcia called the pardon a “surprise” after the former president sent a letter to Trump, who had also received a formal legal request for the pardon. “We weren’t expecting a response. I don’t know why it came out the way it did, but President Trump chose to express his will that way, and I am grateful for what he did for my husband, for bringing justice in the face of a terrible injustice,” she said.