Will Europe Join the Next Round of Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks?

Two numbers frame the latest round of Russia-Ukraine diplomacy: one day and nine months. President Trump's envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, flew to Moscow on Thursday — one day after mediating the first direct talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives in nine months, held in Abu Dhabi, according to The New York Times. The question now is whether Europe gets a seat at the table for what comes next.

What did Witkoff and Kushner ask Putin to do?

The envoys met President Vladimir V. Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday to seek his agreement to bring European governments into the negotiations over the war, The Times reported. From Moscow they flew to Dublin to debrief President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. Speaking to reporters at the air base where both delegations' planes waited, Kushner said the talks cannot produce a deal without European participation.

"We cannot conclude this deal without Europeans being at the table," Kushner told reporters Thursday night, per The Times.

Why does Russia want to widen the talks?

The Kremlin is pushing to expand the negotiations beyond a cease-fire into a broader overhaul of European security arrangements, The Times reported. Russia has made clear it will not consider a cease-fire until those wider demands are addressed — a sequencing that puts the scope of any deal, not just its terms, in dispute.

What did Zelensky say in Dublin?

Standing next to Kushner, Zelensky said Europe will join the next round of talks. "It's important for us, because the war is in Europe," he said, according to The Times. Russia has not confirmed that Europeans will be included, leaving a gap between Kyiv's account of the arrangement and Moscow's silence on it.

Why is the Trump administration pushing now?

The push comes as the Trump administration looks for a foreign policy win after what The Times described as Republicans' drubbing in the midterm elections. The renewed diplomatic effort is moving forward even though Russia has given no indication it will halt the war soon and, by The Times' account, appears to be hardening some of its positions.

What happens next in the negotiations?

The near-term marker is whether a European delegation actually appears at the next session, as Zelensky predicted, or whether Russia's noncommittal stance holds up that step. The Abu Dhabi meeting — the first direct Russia-Ukraine contact in nine months — set a baseline for renewed engagement; the Moscow-to-Dublin shuttle by Witkoff and Kushner this week was the immediate follow-through. Until Moscow confirms European involvement, the scope of the talks remains unsettled even as the cast of participants expands.

Data points

• Nine months: gap since the last direct Russia-Ukraine talks before this week's Abu Dhabi session, per The Times.
• One day: interval between the Abu Dhabi meeting and the Witkoff-Kushner trip to Moscow, per The Times.

For the full account, see The New York Times.