A recent push by the Trump administration to reignite peace talks in Russia's war in Ukraine

has led to a flurry of diplomacy to get the main players to the negotiating table.

Now, on the doorstep of what will be the fourth anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine,

are we any closer to an end to the war?

Hello and welcome to USA Today is The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Thursday, December 4th,

2025. The Trump administration's 28-point peace plan leaked last month has been widely criticized

for masquerading as a compromise while essentially

repackaging the Kremlin's longstanding demands, limiting Western powers, seeding territory not

yet gained on the ground, limiting the size of Ukraine's military, and ruling out future NATO

membership. The only carrot for Ukraine, an end to the war.

Where do negotiations stand today? More importantly, what will it take to encourage both sides to find common ground?

Here to help me dig into all of it is USA Today, White House correspondent Francesca Chambers.

Thanks so much for joining me, Francesca.

Oh, it's so great to be back. Thank you.

President Donald Trump's special envoy, Steve Whitkoff, was in Moscow this week for negotiations

with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Let's start there. Was there any progress? What came out

of those meetings? Well, a spokesperson for Vladimir Putin said that they had a direct exchange of

views and he said, quote, some things were accepted, some things were marked as unacceptable,

end quote. But we don't know what those things were that were marked as unacceptable by Russia

in the updated version of this peace plan. We haven't seen, at least

publicly, what this peace plan actually says since it was revised following that initial

leak that you referred to, which by the way USA Today was one of the outlets that had obtained

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