European leaders have rejected Vladimir Putin’s efforts to overhaul the continent’s security architecture amid Ukraine peace talks, as Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned allies that Washington and Moscow were already discussing the issue.
U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with the Russian president in Moscow on Thursday following Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi earlier this week, where the Russian delegation discussed Europe’s security arrangements while refusing to meet with European officials.
“There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Europe had a functioning European security architecture until it was gradually undermined and finally destroyed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine,” said European Council President António Costa, who received the Ukrainian president and other leaders in Dublin on Thursday.
Zelenskyy said U.S.-Russian-Ukrainian talks in Abu Dhabi this week involved “a lot of discussions about security guarantees.”
“Europe really needs to pay attention to this,” Zelensky said. “When the Americans and the Russians talk about it, it’s not just about Ukraine, but rather about a kind of new security framework between Europe and Russia. And we find this approach a little strange.”
Russian officials have repeatedly said the continent’s security arrangements need to be overhauled, which means banning further NATO expansion and military exercises near the Russian border, as well as the withdrawal of troops and military equipment from NATO’s eastern flank.
These demands were interpreted in many European capitals as an attempt by the Kremlin to restore its sphere of influence and undermine the national sovereignty of EU and NATO members.
Putin said Thursday that Moscow’s proposals for a new security architecture must be discussed before reaching an agreement on ending the war.
“What do the Europeans hear? No, only after peace in Ukraine. But they plan to send troops there after peace in Ukraine. This continues the war,” Putin said.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said later Thursday: “The current system is not working. This is obvious to everyone. And we hope that European countries will support the development of the outlines of a new long-term non-nuclear security and peace architecture, which we are immediately ready to implement in tandem with the United States.”
Ushakov said Russia’s key conditions were a ban on NATO expansion and the deployment of “weapons systems on the Russian border that threaten us”, as well as a “return to the configuration of alliance forces at the time when the founding act of NATO and Russia was signed” in the 1990s.
He said Russia wanted to add “some new ideas based on the lessons that we cannot help but learn from the current situation, when the collective West has taken up arms against us and does not hide its interests in using the kyiv regime to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia.”
A U.S. official said Kushner and Witkoff had “a constructive and substantive discussion” with Putin that built on the Abu Dhabi talks.
“Discussions focused on potential pathways to ending the war, addressing the security concerns of both sides, and establishing conditions for a lasting peace. We will continue our consultations with Ukraine and our European partners while working to advance these efforts,” the official added.
Kushner and Witkoff told Putin in televised statements that the United States wanted Europeans to participate in future negotiations over the war in Ukraine and that Washington had begun discussions with its European allies on the continent’s security architecture.
A person briefed on the Abu Dhabi negotiations acknowledged that the issue was being discussed. “Yes, people talk about the theme of European security in the broad sense. But not about the content,” said the person concerned. “Including Abu Dhabi.”
Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s top negotiator, told state television after the Abu Dhabi talks that Russia wanted to create “a new comprehensive European security system that would serve as a new Yalta and Potsdam,” replacing the world order established after World War II.
Three officials told the FT there was growing nervousness around European capitals that agreeing to talks on broader continental defense and security issues would be the price they would have to pay for getting a seat at the Ukraine talks, something they had refused to do for five years.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, said Europe should only be ready to begin negotiations on the continent’s security architecture after Russia concludes a peace deal.
“At this time, focusing on the European security architecture distracts from what it should be, which is a ceasefire ending the massacres in Ukraine,” Kallas said.
Unease over European security negotiations among the continent’s leaders has added to pressure to finalize a long-running debate over who should represent Europe in possible negotiations.
EU leaders will debate the issue in Dublin in the hope of finding a name this month. Europe’s interaction with American and Ukrainian negotiators, as well as its ad hoc approaches to Putin, have been unpredictable and sometimes inconsistent. Britain, France, Germany and Italy, as well as the EU, have all sent delegations to meetings on the sidelines of the Abu Dhabi talks this week.
“Europe’s security cannot be discussed without a European voice at the table. This European voice must be the result of a team effort between European nations, the European Union and NATO,” Costa said.
Regarding the search for lasting peace in Ukraine, he said: “The fact is that so far there has been limited concrete progress in this direction, because until now Russia continues to focus on escalating the war. It has not yet demonstrated that it prioritizes peace over domination.”
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