Europe set to join Ukraine peace talks as Putin rejects peacekeeping troops
Jared Kushner said Ukraine and Russia had agreed to European participation in the next negotiations, while Vladimir Putin maintained his territorial demands and opposed a peacekeeping deployment.
By Marina Weber ·
European countries are to participate in the next round of peace negotiations between Ukraine and Russia, Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner said late on Thursday after meeting Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Kushner said both countries had agreed to broaden participation, allowing discussions to cover Europe’s postwar security arrangements as well as territorial disputes between Kyiv and Moscow.
Writing on X, Kushner also said work was under way on a possible prisoner exchange that could be the largest of the war and reunite thousands of people with their families. Following the Kremlin talks, he and fellow US envoy Witkoff travelled to Ireland for a European summit and a meeting with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Zelenskyy welcomed the prospect of European involvement and said he wanted the negotiating agenda to include measures to reduce the fighting and move towards ceasefires. After meeting the American envoys, he said they had agreed to work on an agenda addressing de-escalation. Witkoff, speaking to Russian state television after the Moscow meeting, described European participation as important because European countries were partners of the United States.
Putin, however, warned against any European deployment of peacekeeping troops to Ukraine after a peace agreement, describing it as a “continuation of war”. He also maintained his territorial demands and called on Washington to establish whether its European allies wanted peace or war in Ukraine. His remarks highlighted the substantial disagreements between Russia and European capitals over how the conflict should end.
Kushner told Putin that Washington had seen a significant shift in the European position and expressed confidence that bringing European countries into the negotiations would not obstruct progress. Putin said Russia had remained willing to discuss Ukraine with the EU, while accusing European countries of breaking off dialogue with Moscow.
Zelenskyy also raised concerns about new restrictions affecting the American satellite communications system used by Ukrainian forces. He said on Thursday that disruptions to Starshield, the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink service, had affected the whole frontline and Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory. Similar disruptions occurred last month. Zelenskyy said little was yet known about the restrictions but questioned whether decisions in America were treating Ukrainian land as though it belonged elsewhere. He also questioned the US approach to discussing a new European security order with Russia. SpaceX declined to comment.
Fighting continued alongside the diplomacy. Sumy governor Oleh Hryhorov said late on Thursday that a Russian drone strike had killed two people in the northern Ukrainian region. A local official reported early on Friday that five people were injured when a Russian drone struck an apartment building in Rivne, in north-western Ukraine.
Officials in Russia’s Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, said a drone attack on Thursday killed one man and injured four other people. Ukrainian agricultural company Kernel Holding also announced on Thursday that it had halted operations at every one of its oilseed extraction plants after a series of Russian attacks on its facilities.
