US envoy Kushner says he aims to facilitate Europe-Russia talks on Ukraine | News

Europe’s direct engagement alongside Moscow in the Ukraine-Russia peace talks is about to become a reality.

U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said he was working with Russia, Ukraine and Europe to take peace talks to the next stage, including by facilitating direct engagement between Europe and Moscow.

Kushner told reporters Saturday that “both sides” — kyiv and Moscow — know that compromises will be necessary to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, and that he and his colleague Steve Witkoff were now working on the next steps.

The comments by US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law follow peace talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, which failed to achieve an end to the war but resulted in a prisoner exchange.

The prospect of European involvement in the negotiations has grown in recent weeks, with leaders agreeing on Friday to send five representatives from European countries to represent the bloc at future peace talks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that he did not think it was possible to think about European security “without Europe”.

The Kremlin has been open to negotiations with Europe, but has criticized the bloc’s lack of proposals.

The five countries present – ​​France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the United Kingdom – indicated that they were ready to send troops as part of a “coalition of the willing” to secure Ukraine in the event of a ceasefire.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Washington DC, said that “Russia’s acceptance, as Jared Kushner accepted, of European participation (in the talks), is something that could actually be important.”

“Kushner also directly refers to the issue of security guarantees required by Ukraine, and he clarifies that it would be NATO that would provide these guarantees,” Hanna said.

Furthermore, he added, “as negotiators suggest, there could be another round of multilateral negotiations to build on what is called ‘substantial progress’ in recent negotiations.”

In a lengthy message on X on Saturday, French President Emmanuel Macron said Europe must “clearly declare” what it wants for the post-war period, “including to the Russians.”

Macron also expressed his belief that Ukraine, which has the largest conventional army in Europe, has a key role to play in the post-war European context alongside NATO, which, he added, is a “place where it fully belongs”.

Zelensky said Friday that U.S. negotiators had asked during the Abu Dhabi talks whether Ukraine would withdraw its troops from its eastern Donbas region, most of which is occupied by Russia, in exchange for joining NATO.

The war rages while negotiations continue. November leaks from Russia’s official statistics agency showed that Moscow’s war effort has so far cost the lives of at least 450,000 soldiers.