US envoys travel to Moscow to seek Putin's backing for bringing Europe into Ukraine talks
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner went to Moscow to seek Vladimir Putin's agreement to bring Europe into negotiations on the war in Ukraine, The New York Times reported.
The visit followed a day of mediation in Abu Dhabi, where the two envoys helped run peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian representatives. Those talks were the first occasion in nine months on which the two sides spoke directly, according to the same report.
The Kremlin is pushing to widen the negotiations beyond the war itself, to include an overhaul of European security arrangements, the agreements and institutions that govern military safety across the continent. Russia has said it will not consider a cease-fire, an agreement to halt fighting, until its demands on those arrangements are addressed.
After meeting Putin in the Kremlin, Witkoff and Kushner were scheduled to travel to Dublin to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The schedule for that meeting was set at the time of the Moscow visit.
Zelensky has also raised a separate concern. He said Ukrainian armed forces were facing restrictions on Starshield, a service used by the military, and that Ukraine had asked the United States for information about them.
For now, the central question is whether Moscow's proposal to include Europe in the talks can move forward alongside the Abu Dhabi track, which has so far involved the two warring sides speaking directly for the first time in nine months.
