US Envoys in Moscow for Crucial Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks with Putin

United States envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff have arrived in Moscow for discussions with Russian President Vladimir Putin, marking the latest effort to broker a peace deal in Ukraine. They were met upon arrival on Thursday morning by Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy, who accompanied them to the city center. This meeting follows two days of trilateral peace talks in the United Arab Emirates, which concluded in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. While these talks announced another significant prisoner exchange, they did not achieve a breakthrough in ending the nearly five-year conflict. The US indicated that disagreements persist on key issues, including territory, though some progress was noted regarding post-war security guarantees. Kyiv has firmly rejected Putin’s demands for the surrender of its entire eastern Donbas region in exchange for peace. The Abu Dhabi negotiations represented the first direct Russia-Ukraine talks mediated by the US in nine months. Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova stated that a key objective of the US team’s visit would be to encourage Putin to include European nations in the negotiation process. "Ukraine and the US want the European partners to be involved while Moscow is adamant about talks without the Europeans, and that’s why they’ve been largely excluded from the process," she explained. Shapovalova also noted that the US delegation would present Putin with an updated peace plan proposal, and Dmitriev’s presence suggested that complex issues would be addressed. Meanwhile, leaders from over 40 European countries convened in Dublin on Thursday for a summit focused on continental security, as part of the US-backed initiative to restart talks. The gathering of the European Political Community (EPC) included heads of state and government from both the European Union and other European nations, such as the United Kingdom. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, and NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte were also in attendance. The EPC, established in 2022, serves as a platform for countries within and outside the 27-member EU. Zelenskyy and his European counterparts are expected to discuss the recent talks in Abu Dhabi. Kushner, who is also US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, and Witkoff are scheduled to meet Zelenskyy in Dublin on Friday, following their discussions with Putin. From Kyiv, Audrey Macalpine reported that Ukrainians are skeptical about the Moscow talks yielding significant results. "Over the past two days, we saw just another prisoner exchange, which has been the case in previous talks," the correspondent observed. "When it comes to the negotiations, not much has changed in terms of where these two sides stand," Macalpine added. "Perhaps the biggest thing of note [in the talks] was that they took place at all." In related developments, French Minister Delegate for European Affairs Benjamin Haddad announced on Thursday that the EU is set to approve further sanctions against Russia. "On Monday, we will take new sanctions against Russia on 150 additional entities, 50 banks, and it’s France which proposed the bulk of the entities to add," Haddad told LCI television.