DUBLIN: Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and US envoy Jared Kushner said on Thursday that Europe would join the next round of talks with Russia, as Vladimir Putin indicated 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 Zelenskyy.
As they spoke to journalists on the tarmac of a military airbase in Ireland, the main progress touted by the Ukrainian leader and US President Donald Trump’s representative was that European negotiators would be at the table for future talks.
Zelenskyy said Europeans would take part rather than remain “separately” on the sidelines, as they had in Abu Dhabi, insisting: “They will have a voice.”
“We cannot conclude this deal without Europeans being at the table,” Kushner said, adding that Putin was “willing to give it a try”.
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, which Kyiv and its allies have long been seeking.
Instead, the Russian leader had earlier told the US duo that he would not water down demands to control parts of Ukraine that Russia claims to have annexed and ruled out agreeing to foreign peacekeeping troops in Ukraine — a deployment he said would be a “continuation of war”.
Putin’s comments appeared to dampen hopes that a peace deal could be getting nearer.
As the United States has pushed for Europe to be allowed 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, and said Russia must first stop hostilities.
In the Irish capital for a summit of European leaders, Zelenskyy 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.
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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 that was under the control of 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 the West as illegal.
Putin proposed organising what he called a “humanitarian mission” to the city of Kostyantynivka, where he said some 400 to 500 civilians still lived.
Russia claimed in the summer to have captured the city, but Ukraine insists fighting there is ongoing.
The idea would be modelled on a short-term truce last month that allowed hundreds of stranded locals to flee the Russian-occupied town of Oleshky in southern Ukraine.
Dmytro Lytvyn, an adviser to Ukraine’s Zelenskyy, 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 any foreign troops being deployed to Ukraine as a post-war peacekeeping force, saying Moscow would see any such deployment as a “legitimate target”.
‘United vision’
European countries have been rattled by Russia pushing 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.
As European leaders gathered in Dublin, EU chief Antonio Costa said “there is no need to reinvent the wheel” on Europe’s security framework, as he accused 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”.
France’s President Emmanuel Macron meanwhile urged Europe to rally behind a “clear and united vision” on what it wants from Ukraine talks, as Russia and the United States push Europe to name a single representative they can deal with.