BBCUnited States
Goldstein: -5.0Tone: 50.0CAMEO 10
US envoys Jared Kushner (left) and Steve Witkoff (right) met Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin on Thursday evening
Ukraine's president has welcomed a pledge from US envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, to include delegates from the European Union in the next round of peace talks with Russia.
European leaders have expressed deepening security concerns this week, and Volodymyr Zelensky said bringing them into the talks would ensure the EU has a "voice" in negotiations.
Kushner and Witkoff met Zelensky in Dublin on Thursday evening as part of a busy day of shuttle diplomacy - they met Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier, who said that Russia's position on the war - and its demand for territory - has not changed.
The meetings follow talks in Abu Dhabi last week that failed to reach a breakthrough in ending the war.
But Thursday did see Russia and Ukraine agree to another prisoner exchange - the largest swap yet since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Kushner said it would return "thousands of people to their families", but further details like how many prisoners would be exchanged or a timeline, were not given.
US envoys meet Zelensky in Dublin after talks with Putin in Moscow
Europe's security 'fundamentally reshaped' by war in Ukraine
Zelensky has for several years been calling for European delegates to be included in the peace talks, and says it makes sense because of Kyiv's longer-term ambition to join the European Union.
On Thursday, Kushner said that the US has been "working very, very closely over the past several months with Europeans and I think that that's been very important."
He added that he had stressed to Putin how important it is to have European delegates "at the table".
"He's willing to give it a try," Kushner added.
Ukraine and Europe have long been concerned about the current US government's commitment to European security and its softening towards the Kremlin.
Moscow has been dismissive of European involvement, although Europeans have long argued that they are central to any post-war dynamics on their continent.
Earlier on Thursday, Vice President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas, the EU's top diplomat, told BBC's Newshour the presence of a European delegate showed the Kremlin "now realised that Europe is a big player".
Kallas also expressed doubts that there was Russian momentum towards a peace deal.
Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) Micheál Martin told a host of Euro leaders gathered in the Irish capital on Thursday that he believed the security of the region has been "fundamentally reshaped" by Russia's war.
"Many member states [of the EU] feel an existential threat because of what has happened in Ukraine and the potential, if Ukraine was to fall, for further aggression on the European continent," he told reporters.
Approximately one-fifth of Ukraine remains under control of Russian forces, and cross-border incursions are increasingly common.
Tensions between the US and Ukraine were on display on Thursday before Witkoff and Kushner's meeting with Zelensky.
Earlier, the Ukrainian leader said that the military was facing more "systematic" restrictions to Starlink's military-grade satellite service, Starshield, meaning Kyiv was struggling to intercept Russian jet-powered drones.
The technology owned by Elon Musk's SpaceX company has played a vital role in government and military connectivity in Ukraine, and increasingly assists in facilitating communication on Ukraine's front line.
Open article →BBCUnited States
Goldstein: 1.0Tone: -60.0CAMEO 04
On Thursday Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Moscow and Dublin to hold talks with the Russian and Ukrainian presidents
Trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi between Russia, Ukraine and the US aimed at ending the war in Ukraine have concluded after a second day.
Although the American side said they saw "some openings", there was no hint of any breakthroughs to end the nearly five year-long war sparked by Russia's invasion.
However, both Moscow and Kyiv confirmed that a large-scale prisoner of war exchange was in the works and could be carried out soon.
Davyd Arakhamia from Ukraine's negotiating team said that this round of talks - the first since February - "was one of the hardest."
"I believe the Russians came with very strict directives, so it was extremely difficult to soften the discussion," he said. But he added that he felt "good momentum" and urged for a second round of talks to be organised as soon as possible.
Comments by Kremlin negotiator Vladimir Medinsky were less conciliatory. "Right now... a lot depends on Ukraine, on the position of the US, and on whether Europe comes to its senses," he said.
After the talks it was announced that on Thursday US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner - President Donald Trump's son-in-law - would travel to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then to Dublin to speak to Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky.
The meetings in Abu Dhabi had been framed as centred around the "security architecture" of Europe.
For Kyiv, this may include reassurances that allies will come to its aid if Ukraine comes under attack again, despite the country not being a Nato member.
For Moscow, a reworked "security framework" is likely to include a limit to the influence of Nato in eastern Europe - a central concern for the Kremlin since the alliance's eastward expansion.
Earlier this week Kushner said the US hoped to "create a new framework" of security between Ukraine, Russia and Europe that could "secure lasting peace", while the Kremlin's Medinsky said the world needed a "new" and "fair" security system.
That framework would serve as "a new Yalta and Potsdam", Medinsky said, referring to the 1940s summits in which the victorious Allied powers carved up post-war Europe into spheres of influence.
Ukraine and Europe have long been concerned about the current US administration's commitment to European security and its softening towards the Kremlin.
Representatives of Britain, Nato and various EU countries were also in Abu Dhabi and met with US and Ukrainian negotiators, but the Kremlin - with whom the EU does not officially communicate - said its delegation had not had any contact with them.
Moscow has been dismissive of European involvement, although Europeans have long argued that they are central to any post-war dynamics on their continent.
Many - particularly in eastern Europe - feel their security is linked to that of Ukraine. Agreements cannot be implemented "if no consensus can be reached among Nato members," a German government spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Kushner said the US was keen to bring the Europeans on board and said that getting them "added to the format" would be on the agenda for his talks with Putin.
There is also disagreement on whether discussions on a future security framework should be preceded by a ceasefire, as the Europeans and Kyiv would want, or whether the fighting only stops after an agreement has been reached, as the Kremlin has insisted.
Any agreement on a peacetime security framework, however, is contingent on the war ending, Kushner noted. But that cannot occur "until there's an agreement on territory and on all other bilateral issues," he added.
Since talks began last year, a core obstacle to any settlement has been Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, which is mostly occupied by Russia. Kyiv wants to freeze the contact line to maintain control over those areas, which it says are essential to its security.
Moscow, meanwhile, has never backed down from its demand that Ukraine relinquish the parts of Donetsk it still holds. "Every inch" of land would be "returned to Russia one way or another", Medinsky said.
Kushner acknowledged that the territorial question remained the hardest, while Zelensky's chief of staff and negotiator Kyrylo Budanov refused to be drawn on whether Russia was still demanding a Ukrainian withdrawal from the region.
Later, Budanov admitted the talks had been "tough" and that Ukraine's priority was to ensure Russia could not attack it again.
"These deals are very hard and complex, and this one is very emotional, very complex," Kushner said. "The reality is there is no trust right now between the sides and that is to be expected after a conflict like this."
Inside devastated front-line city that Russia wants Ukraine to give up
First day of Ukraine peace talks constructive, Zelensky says
Open article →GDELTWashington D.C.
Goldstein: -10.0Tone: -0.6
—
Open article →BBCWashington
Goldstein: 1.0CAMEO 04
Senior officials from Ukraine, Russia and the US will reconvene for a second day of talks on Wednesday
The first of two days of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US aimed at ending the war in Ukraine has concluded in Abu Dhabi.
While senior officials from Kyiv and Moscow were tight-lipped after the four hour-long discussions, President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was not at the talks, said they had proved "constructive and quite substantive".
Speaking from Paris, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio also said the meeting had been "very productive".
Although expectations for a breakthrough that ends Russia's full-scale war on Ukraine are low, US officials said earlier that Moscow and Kyiv were privately showing "a little bit of flexibility" on the issue of who would control Ukraine's eastern regions in a postwar scenario.
Zelensky also said that humanitarian issues such as prisoner of war exchanges had been discussed.
At the start of Tuesday's talks President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, told delegates that the US had "narrowed the gaps" between the two sides, without providing details, and hoped to move towards a "solution that hopefully ends the war".
Kushner had said earlier the talks would be focused on addressing the "postwar security concerns" of both Russia and Ukraine.
Asked later at a news conference in Copenhagen about the approach of US officials to negotiations, Zelensky said: "I see changes. I'm very happy with what I hear."
Kushner and Trump peace envoy Steve Witkoff also met Ukrainian and European and Nato officials on the sidelines of the main meeting.
Until now European leaders have largely been excluded from peace talks, but they have pushed to be included in the discussions amid concerns that decisions about their continent's security would be made without them.
The Americans appear to support this, with Rubio acknowledging during a visit to Paris that the Europeans "are a part of solving this problem for the long term".
However, "the Russians have a bad taste in their mouth with the Europeans", according to a US official.
Some proposals favoured by EU officials - such as calling an unconditional ceasefire as a prerequisite for peace negotiations - are routinely rejected by Moscow. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that a truce would just allow Kyiv to regroup. "We will not agree to it," he said.
Moscow and Kyiv's positions are still far apart on ending the conflict.
A key area of disagreement involves Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, which is mostly occupied by Russia.
Moscow has demanded that Ukraine relinquish the parts of Donetsk it still holds, while Kyiv wants to freeze the contact line to maintain control over those areas, which it says are crucial to its future security.
While neither side has budged on these demands, the US official speaking on the eve of the talks suggested that this was just the public stance and that Moscow and Kyiv had shown "a little bit of flexibility, privately".
However, he acknowledged the issue would not be solved without discussions about a new "security architecture".
"They will not solve the Donetsk issue and the territorial issue until they know what the security architecture is going to be after the war," the official said. "And keep in mind, we're not going to be able to finalise one without the other."
For Ukraine, a post-war "security architecture" may include reassurance that allies will come to its aid if it comes under attack again. For Russia, that could be its longstanding ambition to see Nato roll back from Eastern Europe – which would be alarming to Europeans.
The framework being proposed includes security consultations and crisis communications hotlines, as well as "reciprocal de-escalation measures" between the two. The officials also floated the re-activation of the Nato-Russia Council that has been largely paused since 2022.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are part of the US delegation that will attend the talks in Abu Dhabi
The last round of trilateral talks, held in Geneva in February, ended without a breakthrough. Soon after, the US-Israel war on Iran diverted Washington's attention from Ukraine, and no other discussions were held since.
From the start of his second term in office, US President Donald Trump – who once boasted he could end the war in Ukraine within a day – has spearheaded several rounds of talks to end the conflict, albeit with little success.
Meanwhile, his increasingly conciliatory approach towards Moscow has fuelled deep unease in Kyiv and across the European Union.
After meeting Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Washington last week, Trump touted a forthcoming "big, beautiful agreement" on Ukraine that "might involve all of Europe".
Many in Ukraine are sceptical that this would result in a fair peace.
Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the foreign affairs parliamentary committee, told the BBC he believed Trump wanted "a quick deal at the expense of Ukraine", which will certainly be rejected by Kyiv.
The only way to make Russia's Vladimir Putin start real negotiations was by putting greater pressure on Russia through sanctions and deep strikes, Merezhko said.
"While Putin has a war machine up and running, he has no incentives to negotiate." He also mentioned recent moves by Trump, such as his deal to buy diesel from Russia, as something that "only encourages Moscow to continue the war".
Moscow's delegation in Abu Dhabi includes Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, spy chief Igor Kostyukov and army general Yury Zhigarlovsky.
Kyiv has sent several senior officials who have been part of previous negotiating teams, including Foreign Intelligence Service head Rustem Umerov, Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, and MP Davyd Arakhamiya.
Away from Abu Dhabi, Russia continues to pummel Ukraine with deadly bombardments and strikes on energy infrastructure, viewed in Kyiv as proof that Moscow wants to corner Ukraine into accepting a deal on Russia's terms.
On Monday, Kushner was cautious to point out that the Abu Dhabi talks could at most "build momentum toward the next phase of negotiations".
"This is an extraordinarily difficult and complicated conflict," he wrote on X, adding the US was "approaching these discussions with determination and realism."
Russian strikes wound nine and damage Ukraine's power network ahead of talks
Why Donetsk 'fortress belt' matters so much for Ukraine's defences
Open article →