DUBLIN: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and US envoy Jared Kushner said on Thursday that Europe would join the next round of talks with Russia, as Vladimir Putin indicated that Moscow would not compromise on its hardline demands to end almost five years of war.
In a packed day of shuttle diplomacy following negotiations in Abu Dhabi, Kushner and fellow envoy Steve Witkoff held more than four hours of talks with Putin in the Kremlin before flying to Dublin to brief Zelensky.
Speaking to journalists on the tarmac of a military airbase in Ireland, the main progress highlighted by the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump’s representative was that European negotiators would take part in future talks.
Zelensky said Europeans would participate rather than remain “separately” on the sidelines, as they had in Abu Dhabi, insisting: “They will have a voice”.
Kushner later reiterated the point in a post on X, writing: “both sides have now agreed to expand the next round of negotiations to include our European partners.”
“Significant differences remain, but we are encouraged by the progress made,” he posted, adding that the schedule and details of the negotiating process would be released “shortly”.
An EU official told AFP that representatives of five European capitals, as well as the European Commission, had also met the US envoys, and that a new multilateral meeting “will be fixed soon”.
The Kremlin did not confirm that Putin had agreed to include Europe in future talks, a move Kyiv and its allies have long sought.
Instead, the Russian leader had earlier told the US envoys that he would not soften his demands to control parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed, and ruled out agreeing to the deployment of foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, which he said would be a “continuation of war”.
Putin’s comments appeared to dampen hopes that a peace deal might be getting closer.
While the United States has pushed for Europe to have a seat at the table, Moscow has sought to reframe the talks as part of a wider discussion about European security.
Kyiv and European leaders have insisted there is no need to rewrite the arrangements underpinning the continent’s security, saying Russia must first end hostilities.
In the Irish capital for a summit of European leaders, Zelensky meanwhile said fresh restrictions on the Starshield satellite internet service were hampering Ukraine’s ability to intercept Russian jet drones, meaning “more of our people are killed”.
No ‘grey’ zones
Usually held behind closed doors, the Kremlin chose to televise a lengthy opening exchange between Putin and the US envoys.
The Russian leader rejected talk of a possible territorial settlement involving “grey” — or demilitarised — zones between Ukrainian and Russian positions.
“For us, there is only one line of demarcation: the state border. Because then it will be clear and obvious: here are we, and here are you,” he said.
Russia has seized swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine since launching its full-scale offensive in 2022, in addition to Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and territory previously controlled by Russian-backed separatists.
Moscow has formally annexed four Ukrainian regions — Donetsk, Kherson, Lugansk and Zaporizhzhia — despite not having full control over them. The annexations have been rejected by Kyiv and Western countries as illegal.
Putin proposed organising what he called a “humanitarian mission” to the city of Kostyantynivka, where he said some 400 to 500 civilians were still living.
Russia claimed in the summer to have captured the city, but Ukraine insists fighting there is continuing.
The idea would be modelled on a short-term truce that last month allowed hundreds of stranded residents to flee the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine.
Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to Zelensky, warned that Russia would try to rotate in new troops “under the cover of a humanitarian operation”.
Putin also repeated his long-standing objection to the deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine as a post-war peacekeeping force, saying Moscow would regard any such deployment as a “legitimate target”.
‘United vision’
European countries have been rattled by Russia’s push for a review of the entire continent’s security architecture, with the United States also floating a new framework.
That is widely seen as a reference to Moscow’s long-standing demands to push back the NATO military alliance in eastern Europe and end Western military support for Kyiv.
Russia and the United States have also been pushing Europe to appoint a single representative with whom they can negotiate.
As European leaders gathered in Dublin, EU chief Antonio Costa said “there is no need to reinvent the wheel” on Europe’s security framework, accusing Russia of wrecking it by attacking Ukraine.
In a French-backed declaration, 39 countries insisted that “any matter affecting European security should be decided with the Europeans”.
