MOSCOW (AP) — U.S. envoys meet with Russian president Thursday Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin then left for Ireland to meet with the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky while Washington was looking for new impetus in its peace efforts.
Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, brokered talks between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv this week. The session in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, marked the first direct discussions between Ukrainian and Russian representatives in nine months as the pressure for a settlement has stalled.
The talks have not resulted in any major progress, apart from an agreement on the exchange of a large number of prisoners, the exact number of which has not yet been announced.
Kushner and Witkoff met with Putin in a meeting that lasted about two hours. They then headed to Dublin for talks with Zelensky as the conflict stretches on for five years.
Europe seeks a place at the negotiating table
Kushner said one goal of the meeting with Putin was to get the Russian leader’s blessing for European representatives to participate in the negotiations, which focus on the continent’s broader security arrangements.
The United States and Zelensky want Europe to appoint a single person to negotiate with Moscow.
Russia, meanwhile, does not want European countries involved in direct negotiations, complaining that they are. finance and supply Ukraine’s military effort. Europeans are worried Russian behavior and broader intentions on the continent.
But Washington and European capitals have sometimes seemed at odds in their diplomatic efforts. Trump has repeatedly said on Putin’s sidelast month waived sanctions and struck a deal to import Russian diesel, dismaying Ukraine and European leaders.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that for Europe to participate in peace talks, it must first appoint a representative.
“Europeans are bickering like spiders in a pot. If anyone takes the initiative to establish contact with the Russian side, they risk being ostracized.”
Many in Europe also view Moscow’s inclusion in postwar European security discussions as an unwelcome concession from Putin, who has described NATO’s eastward expansion as a major threat to Russia’s security. Putin demanded that the transatlantic alliance’s troops be withdrawn from Russia’s borders.
Some analysts say negotiators could seek to grant Russia concessions on NATO strategy in exchange for peace in Ukraine – a possibility that worries European leaders.
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi “agreed on many principles, but still differ on some of the ways to achieve” peace, Kushner said in Moscow.
Putin reiterated to U.S. envoys that any European troops sent to Ukraine after a ceasefire – an idea Europe has long floated to prevent another attack by Moscow – would be “absolutely unacceptable” and that Russia would view the deployment as a threat to security and legitimate targets. “In other words, the war would resume immediately,” he said.
He also said Russia considers its border with Ukraine sealed by a possible peace deal that now extends to the four Ukrainian regions annexed by Moscow in 2022 but never fully controlled.
Zelensky sees this as a political “window of opportunity”
Zelensky is in Dublin for a meeting of more than 40 European countries this also includes NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Rutte said the United States, Europe and Ukraine were “very aligned” on what security guarantees should look like, following a meeting in Paris in January. “But now, of course, we need a peace agreement, or at least a ceasefire,” Rutte said.
Zelensky said political changes, including the arrival of Democrats in the US Congress in January, followed. midterm elections and the vote in France next year, could offer “a window of opportunity” for a peace agreement.
“The political landscape in Europe could change in 2027. … We also see that changes are already happening in the United States,” Zelensky said in Dublin on Wednesday evening.
He called the proposed prisoner exchange a positive step, but also insisted that Ukraine would not cede Russian-occupied territory in exchange for peace.
Russia and Ukraine have occasionally exchanged prisoners, but the two sides remain far apart. their terms for accepting a settlement.
Fighting continues as another harsh winter approaches
Amid the negotiations, fighting continues along the 1,200-kilometer (about 750-mile) front line.
Russia’s largest army has been held back by fierce Ukrainian resistance while Moscow’s drone and missile strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities have been disrupted. supply of heat, electricity and water to Ukrainian citiesundermining public morale in what Kyiv calls a “militarization of winter.”
The Russian Defense Ministry said its air defenses shot down 71 Ukrainian drones overnight. Its forces struck a drone manufacturing factory in kyiv and three other facilities producing missile fuel and drone components in the area around the Ukrainian capital, the ministry said.
Russia launched missiles and 123 drones, including 73 jets, into Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian Air Force said. Shots were recorded in 17 locations, he said.
Starlink problems in the US return, says Zelenskyy
Ukraine sees another slowdown in the United States Starshield System — the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service — which the country needs to defend against Russian attacks, Zelenskyy said Thursday on social media.
Military units recorded “significant disruptions,” including speed restrictions limiting Ukrainian drones to 161 km/h (100 mph), Zelensky said, adding that a military investigation established that the restrictions were not random errors.
Ukraine uses Starlink and Starshield to intercept Russian drones and launch its own strikes.
Limits on the speed of Ukrainian drones last month severely disrupted operations and alarmed kyiv officials who fear a decline in U.S. support.
Elon Musk admitted that his company SpaceX had restricted Starlink internet service in Ukraine for about a week, saying the system could not be used for offensive strikes against Russia.
Zelensky said in Dublin that the speed limits covered operations in Russian-occupied regions of Ukraine and that kyiv was trying to find out from U.S. officials what was happening. “If someone in America makes decisions that basically treat Ukrainian territory as if it’s not Ukrainian, then that tells us where things are going,” he said.
Russian colonel reportedly killed by car bomb
A Russian serviceman was killed Thursday morning in St. Petersburg when his vehicle exploded, according to the Russian Investigative Committee, the country’s main criminal investigation agency. He did not identify the victim or indicate who was behind the attack.
The Fontanka newspaper said the victim was a colonel and that a bomb in his car exploded as he was leaving.
Several senior Russian military officers have been killed in bombings and other attacks that Moscow blames on Ukraine. Kyiv has claimed responsibility for some attacks on Russian soil.
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Susie Blann and Samya Kullab in kyiv, Ukraine, Jill Lawless in Dublin, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal contributed.
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Follow AP coverage of the fighting in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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