The first round of Ukraine peace talks in nine months ended in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday with no Russian agreement to include Europe in negotiations that have extended, at Moscow’s insistence, to questions of huge consequence for European nations’ security.
The two days of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in the United Arab Emirates were led by President Trump’s envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. On Thursday, the two Americans are scheduled to meet with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia in Moscow and then with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine in Dublin.
The Americans said on Wednesday that they would work to nail down the details of what Mr. Kushner billed as the largest prisoner swap of the war.
The envoys are also trying to secure agreement from Moscow to widen the talks to include Europeans, after negotiators in Abu Dhabi discussed Russia’s demands to overhaul European security structures.
Reiterating a longstanding European position, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, said this week that a cease-fire must come before such discussions. That sequencing would avoid negotiating at gunpoint and test Russian compliance with any agreements.
But Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff, trying to find a path forward after nearly two years of fruitless peacemaking efforts, are pushing to grant Moscow its wish of negotiating the postwar security posture in Europe alongside discussions about a cease-fire and territory in Ukraine.
“We do believe that as we discuss these other issues, we’ll find a pathway to settle them all at the same time,” Mr. Kushner said. The White House is trying to expand the scope of negotiations to break the deadlock on Ukraine-specific matters.
Washington believes that the Russians will not agree to anything regarding territory in Ukraine until they understand what the postwar security architecture in Europe will look like, a U.S. official said earlier this week, speaking anonymously to discuss sensitive talks.
At the outset of the Abu Dhabi negotiations, Mr. Kushner said that the discussions were aimed in part at getting “the Russians to agree to finally allow the Europeans into the meeting to make it a multilateral format, which we believe will be very essential toward making progress.”
But by the end of the talks, it was clear that the Russian delegation had not agreed, and that the Kremlin had given it limited room to negotiate. Mr. Kushner and Mr. Witkoff will make the case directly to Mr. Putin in Moscow.
The Russian leader has made clear that his war is about far more than Ukraine. Nearly five years ago, in the run-up to the invasion, Russia demanded a dramatic rollback of American power in Europe. NATO infrastructure and troop rotations were encroaching on Russia, Moscow argued, and should be confined to countries that joined the U.S.-led alliance before 1997.
Practically speaking, that would mean ending NATO-country troop rotations and pulling the alliance’s infrastructure and weaponry out of the Baltics, Central and Eastern Europe and now Finland and Sweden, which joined NATO after Russia invaded Ukraine.
When the war started, the Biden administration and its European allies dismissed any changes to NATO’s posture as unthinkable, but the Trump administration has given Russia’s demands a hearing.
In Abu Dhabi, Russian officials took swipes at the Europeans. The Kremlin has lashed out at Europe as the continent has become Ukraine’s staunchest backer in the war.
“I believe that the moment their conscience awakens, they could potentially become participants in peace negotiations,” Vladimir Medinsky, the former culture minister leading the Russian negotiating team at the talks, told reporters afterward, referring to the Europeans.
Mr. Medinsky told Russian state news after the talks that the goal was “to create a comprehensive security system in Europe that serves as a new, modern-day ‘Yalta and Potsdam.’” He was referring to the meetings during World War II when the United States, Britain and the Soviet Union decided the postwar order of Europe, placing much of it behind the Iron Curtain.
European officials remain divided on whether they should negotiate directly with Russia — and, if so, who should represent them. Mr. Putin has shown no sign of wanting to end the war: Russia has intensified attacks on Ukrainian cities in an effort to make them unlivable this winter.
European leaders have also bristled at any suggestion — like Mr. Medinsky’s — that the United States and Russia might negotiate future security arrangements in Europe without them.
“An arrangement about the future of Ukraine and of Europe above our heads would not just be unwise,” the Polish foreign minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, said last week. “It is actually impossible.”
Concerned about the implications, Britain, France, Germany, the European Union and NATO sent officials to Abu Dhabi. They did not meet with the Russians but consulted separately with the Americans and the Ukrainians.
“If they have come here as tourists, let them chat in the hotel lobby bar and discuss their own affairs,” Mr. Medinsky said. “When they bring forward some concrete proposals, we will then consider them.”
Despite such comments, the Kremlin has signaled in recent weeks that it is more amenable to engaging directly with the Europeans. Mr. Putin welcomed a call from the leaders of Finland and Norway last month that some other European leaders denounced as endangering continental unity on Russia.
Mr. Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said in an interview on Russian state television in October that there had been a sense, after the summit last year between Mr. Putin and Mr. Trump in Alaska, that the United States could dictate terms of a peace deal and force Kyiv into an agreement.
“But that hasn’t worked out, because it’s not enough to talk only to Kyiv,” Mr. Ushakov said. “One must speak to all of Europe, which completely supports Kyiv, and maybe the position of Europe is of key importance here.”
Despite hesitancy among some Europeans to engage with Mr. Putin without a clear sign that he is ready to end the war, other Europeans have begun to support direct engagement, particularly as the U.S.-led talks resume after halting in February.
“We are ready also to reach out as one team to Russian colleagues and make sure that indeed we have the same understanding of what it takes to achieve security and peace for all in Europe,” Emmanuel Bonne, a diplomatic adviser to the French president, said on Wednesday in opening remarks at the meeting between the Europeans, Americans and Ukrainians in Abu Dhabi.
Asked whether it would be helpful for the Europeans to put forward one person to represent them in the talks, Mr. Kushner said that would be remarkable, an allusion to weeks of infighting among Europeans on who such a representative should be.
“If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation,” Mr. Kushner joked.
He said that Russia would not get a deal on postwar security without allowing the Europeans to negotiate alongside the Americans, but that there was no trust between Russia and Europe at this point.
“We relayed to President Putin directly several times and to his team that the only way to get this done is to have them by our side,” Mr. Kushner said. “And I think that they’re receptive to it.”
Reporting was contributed by Oleg Matsnev from Munich, Jeanna Smialek from Brussels, Andrew E. Kramer from Kyiv, Ukraine, and Ismaeel Naar from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.
The post Seeking to Broaden Ukraine Talks, U.S. Urges Russia to Include Europe appeared first on New York Times.
