Putin Hosts Witkoff & Kushner as Ukraine Peace Talks Enter Final 'Land Deal' Phase

Flashbacks to the 1995 Dayton Accords—hammered out on U.S. turf and finalised only after maps were redrawn—hover over these talks. Like Dayton, an external broker is pushing combatants toward a cartographic compromise, while Europe watches warily from the sidelines, echoing the 1938 Munich lesson that land-for-peace deals can boomerang. The episode underscores two longer arcs: America’s century-long habit of mid-wifing settlements beyond its borders, and Russia’s persistent bid, since 1917, to secure buffer zones westward. Whether this moment matters a century from now hinges on one thing: if territory seized by force is internationally legitimised, it could reset the post-1945 norm against conquest, shaping Eurasian security arrangements far beyond the Donbas long after today’s negotiators are footnotes.