U.S. special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have given Russian President Vladimir Putin the opportunity to extend peace negotiations on Ukraine by agreeing to Moscow’s long-standing demand to resolve all contentious issues simultaneously, Politico reported.
After consultations in Abu Dhabi and a Kremlin meeting with Putin, Kushner said the sides aimed to discuss all issues together and find a path to a simultaneous resolution. US President Donald Trump then raised the possibility of reaching a broad agreement involving all of Europe.
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How did US envoys give Putin leverage to block negotiations?
According to Politico editor Jamie Dettmer, agreeing to a single negotiation format upends the traditional diplomatic sequence — which prioritizes establishing a ceasefire and resolving small confidence-building measures first — and allows Moscow to avoid concrete decisions.
Eugene Rumer, a former head of the US National Intelligence Council, told Politico that bringing all issues together has been a long-standing Russian goal aimed at distracting from Moscow’s war against Ukraine and complicating negotiations.
Ukrainian officials have warned that Moscow is using this format to delay a settlement. MP Mykola Kniazhytskyi of the European Solidarity Party told Politico that Putin was trying to buy time to win a war of attrition while hoping for a fracture in European support.
Ukraine’s ambassador to the UK and former commander-in-chief Valery Zaluzhny also warned that discussing all issues at once is a classic Soviet negotiating tactic used to wear down opponents, comparing it to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov’s approach during talks on Syria between 2014 and 2017.
Other topics of interest
White House deputy press secretary Anna Kelly said Friday that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have begun work on the largest prisoner exchange of the war.
Former U.S. special representative for Ukraine negotiations Kurt Volker said assumptions that Putin would be ready for real compromise were wrong. “Putin wants an empire, Ukrainians want freedom. The rest is a matter of details,” Volker said.
Russian presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Moscow’s delegation to Abu Dhabi as well as previous talks in Istanbul in 2025, maintained Russia’s main demands: non-bloc status for Ukraine, strict limits on the size and armament of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU), and international recognition of Russia’s occupation of Crimea and four regions of eastern Ukraine.
Background to recent peace negotiations
Criticism of the negotiating formats follows trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11, which resulted in a framework agreement for a large-scale exchange of prisoners of war (POWs), although they did not result in any progress on territorial issues.
On November 12, Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin in Moscow for approximately two and a half hours. Witkoff then confirmed that a new round of multilateral peace talks – this time including European representatives – was planned and could take place in the coming week.
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov also said on November 12 that Putin and Trump planned to continue talks on a settlement at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in Shenzhen, China, on November 18-19, alongside a proposed trilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders have repeatedly rejected any peace deal negotiated without kyiv and Europe being directly involved at the table.
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