US envoys have held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Ireland, directly after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, in a bid to renew peace efforts.
Envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump's son-in-law, brokered talks this week between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv. The session in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, brought the first direct discussions between Ukrainian and Russian representatives in nine months as the push for a settlement stalled.
The talks produced no major breakthrough, aside from an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners, with the exact figure still to be announced.
Kushner and Witkoff met with Putin for about two hours. They then went to Dublin, where they met with Zelenskyy as the conflict stretches toward the five-year mark.
Kushner said one goal of the meeting with Putin was to get the Russian leader’s blessing for European representatives to be part of the talks, which are looking at the continent’s broader security arrangements.
The US and Zelenskyy want Europe to appoint a single person to negotiate with Moscow.
Russia, meanwhile, doesn’t want European countries involved in the direct negotiations, complaining they are financing and supplying Ukraine’s military effort. The Europeans are concerned about Russia’s conduct and broader intentions on the continent.
Washington and European capitals have sometimes seemed at odds in their diplomatic efforts. Trump has repeatedly sided with Putin, last month waiving sanctions and striking a deal to import Russian diesel, in moves that dismayed Ukraine and European leaders.
Many in Europe also see the inclusion of Moscow in discussions about postwar European security as an unwelcome concession to Putin, who has described NATO’s eastward expansion as a security threat and has demanded the alliance’s troops be pulled back from Russia’s borders.
The talks were “substantive, constructive, frank and useful,” Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov said.
Putin reaffirmed to the US envoys that any European troops sent to Ukraine after a ceasefire would be “absolutely unacceptable” and Russia would regard the deployment as a legitimate target. “In other words, the war would resume immediately,” the Russian president said.
Zelenskyy is in Dublin for a meeting of more than 40 European countries that also includes NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte.
Ahead of the talks, Zelenskyy said political changes, including Democrats taking over the US Congress in January following midterm elections and balloting in France next year, could bring “a window of opportunity” for a peace deal.
He called the proposed prisoner exchange a positive step but insisted Ukraine won't surrender Russian-occupied territory in return for peace.
Amid the negotiations, fighting continues along the 1,200-kilometre front line.
Russia’s army has been held back by dogged Ukrainian resistance while Moscow’s drone and missile strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities disrupted heat, electricity and water supplies to Ukrainian cities, sapping public morale in what Kyiv calls a “weaponisation of winter.”
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air defences downed 71 Ukrainian drones overnight. Its forces struck a drone-manufacturing plant in Kyiv and three other facilities producing missile fuel and drone components in the area around the Ukrainian capital, the ministry said.
Ukraine is experiencing another slowdown in the US Starshield system — SpaceX’s military-grade version of the Starlink satellite internet service — that the country needs to defend itself against Russian attacks, Zelenskyy said on social media.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv is trying to find out from US officials what is going on.
A Russian serviceman was killed in St. Petersburg early Thursday when his vehicle exploded, according to the Investigative Committee, the country’s main criminal investigation agency.
Several senior Russian military officers have died in bombings and other attacks that Moscow blames on Ukraine.
Falling drone debris caused fires at an industrial facility in the southern part of Russia's Volgograd city, Governor Andrey Bocharov said on Telegram, without providing further details.
Volgograd is home to a large oil refinery run by Lukoil , among other facilities.
with AP and DPA
