MOSCOW – U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoys arrived in Moscow on Thursday to discuss with President Vladimir Putin the outcome of U.S.-brokered negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, took part in two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The discussions ended Wednesday with an agreement on a major prisoner-of-war exchange, but produced no apparent breakthrough toward ending nearly five years of fighting.
After his meeting with Putin, Kushner said he and Witkoff would travel to Dublin, Ireland, to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy offered a cautious response to the talks, describing the planned prisoner exchange as a positive development. But he also made clear that Ukraine would not accept demands to surrender territory occupied by Russia in return for peace.
Expectations for a major breakthrough were low ahead of the first direct meeting between the delegations in nine months. Russia and Ukraine have periodically exchanged prisoners of war, yet they remain deeply divided over the terms of any peace agreement.
The main obstacles also include postwar security guarantees for both countries, the future of Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory and the role European nations would play in a final settlement.
Moscow opposes the involvement of European countries, which remain concerned about Russia’s actions and wider ambitions in Europe. Kushner said one purpose of the Moscow meeting was to explore bringing European representatives into the negotiations.
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Kushner said Ukraine and Russia both need clarity about postwar security arrangements. He added that European nations, the European Union and NATO would have to participate in those discussions to build agreement on the way forward.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that European representatives could eventually take part in peace negotiations. However, he said their current public statements “don’t indicate any desire on their part to contribute to movement along the path toward peace.” Moscow has accused Europe of financing Ukraine and supplying it with weapons.
Ukraine wants assurances that Russia will not launch another attack, while European Union officials say talks about the continent’s security arrangements can begin only after a ceasefire. Many European governments view including Russia in those plans as a concession to Putin, who has called NATO’s eastward expansion a major threat to Russian security. Moscow has demanded that the alliance pull its forces back from Russia’s borders.
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