Ukraine Peace Talks: Will Europe Join the Next Round?

Volodymyr Zelensky came out of an hour with Donald Trump’s envoys on Thursday night and said: “It will be the biggest, Steve and Jared told me, the biggest exchange of war prisoners yet,” the Ukrainian president told reporters at Casement Aerodrome in Baldonnel, west of Dublin, on 12 November. At the next meeting, he said, Europe “will be in the negotiating team”. He added: “They will have a voice. This is important for us because the war is in Europe.”

So Europe joins the next round of the Ukraine peace talks, by Kyiv’s account and Washington’s. Jared Kushner, standing beside Zelensky, said the envoys had put the point to Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin a few hours earlier. “We cannot conclude this deal without the Europeans being at the table,” Kushner said. Of Putin he said: “he’s willing to give it a try.” Steve Witkoff said: “We’ve got another meeting on the schedule.”

Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov gave Moscow’s account the same evening: the Europeans “must decide whether they want peace or the continuation of the war”. In Dublin, more than 40 European leaders ended their summit without naming anyone to take the seat. This follows our account of what Putin told the envoys on camera earlier that day.

Zelensky said on 12 November that Europe will sit in the negotiating team at the next round and that Russia and Ukraine will carry out the largest prisoner exchange of the war. Kushner said Putin is “willing to give it a try” with Europeans at the table; Ushakov’s readout of the same meeting contains no such agreement and says Europe’s actions point to “the continuation of the war”. Kaja Kallas said the treaties give the seat to Antonio Costa and herself; Friedrich Merz named the E3 and a group of five; Emmanuel Macron said the format “will be determined” later. Witkoff said the next meeting is “on the schedule” and gave no date or place.

Witkoff and Kushner spent about two hours with Putin in Moscow on Thursday afternoon, then about an hour with Zelensky and his chief negotiator Rustem Umerov at the Irish military airfield.

“Our soldiers will come home,” Zelensky told the reporters outside. “This is a real result, this is very important and successful for the families and to all of us that people will come home to their families.” Later that night he wrote on Telegram, in Ukrainian, that the week had produced three things. The first, in our translation: “Prisoners will be released, and we are counting on the largest exchange of this war.” The second: “we are involving European representatives in diplomacy even more actively, so that they are at the negotiating table on equal terms.” The third: “we are also preparing the next multilateral meetings.”

None of the three gave a number. A day earlier in Dublin, beside the Irish prime minister Micheál Martin, Zelensky had said the Abu Dhabi round discussed a “1,000-for-1,000” swap and “perhaps we will even be able to exchange 1,200 people”. He added then: “I see no reason why Russia should refuse, but anything can happen.” Kushner, on Thursday night: “We were able to finalize on the prisoner of war exchange, which is a very important thing.” He spoke of returning “these thousands of people to their families”.

Witkoff said Trump is “intent on leading the charge to end this war”. He had said more at Vnukovo airport before leaving Moscow: “People didn’t think that we were going to restart trilateral. We’ve restarted it. We’ve set a new meeting.” Of the Europeans he said: “They’re our partners, and it’s important for them to be involved.”

The Russian foreign ministry published Ushakov’s statement on the evening of 12 November, in Russian. He called the Kremlin conversation “substantive, constructive, frank and useful”. Putin, he said, backed “the initiative discussed in Abu Dhabi to hold another, apparently the largest, exchange of prisoners of war”, and “the parameters of this exchange are currently being agreed”.

On Europe, Ushakov said: “They are trying in every way to join the negotiations but, as our President said, they must decide whether they want peace or the continuation of the war. So far all their practical actions point to the latter.” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the same day that Europe must first name a representative. “The Europeans squabble like spiders in a jar,” Peskov said. “If someone takes the initiative to establish contact with the Russian side, such people are facing ostracism.”

Putin, Ushakov said, reminded the Americans of the draft treaties Russia handed to the United States and NATO in 2021. He named three points: “non-expansion of NATO”, no deployment near Russia’s borders of “weapons systems that threaten us”, and a return of the alliance’s forces to where they stood when the Russia-NATO Founding Act was signed in 1997. Russia wants to add what he called “fresh considerations”.

He said the American negotiators “actively supported” Putin’s proposal for a humanitarian mission in Kostiantynivka. He said the meeting discussed Zelensky’s conduct, and claimed that in Kyiv “they do not want to end the war, because they would at once have to announce general elections”. His last line was about Dublin: “We hope the signals from Moscow will be conveyed to them scrupulously.” The Kremlin said in a one-line notice at 22:20 Moscow time that Putin had met his Security Council and discussed the results of the Abu Dhabi talks.

Nobody has been named. At the Abu Dhabi round on 10 and 11 November the national security advisers of France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy attended with European Union and NATO officials. Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said his delegation had no contact with them, a point covered in our account of who sat where in Abu Dhabi.

Three formats were named in Dublin and a fourth in Prague. Merz named two: the E3 of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and a group of five that adds Italy and Poland. Kallas, the European Union‘s foreign policy chief, named Costa, who chairs the European Council, and herself. Estonia’s prime minister Kristen Michal had said before the summit: “Europe has already chosen its representatives: Council President Antonio Costa and Kaja Kallas.” The Czech foreign minister Petr Macinka told Czech Television on 12 November that a small group is more realistic than one envoy, and that agreeing a common mandate among the 27 member states would not be easy.

The United Kingdom left the union in 2020. Costa said at the closing press conference in Dublin that work would continue in several formats and that the Europeans were working as a team.

“When it comes to European security, then the treaties are very concrete,” Kallas said before the summit opened. “It is Antonio Costa, and it is the High Representative and Vice President who is representing Europe in the security matters.”

“We have a proven format with the E3 format,” said Merz, the German chancellor. “We are also partly with the five representatives, Germany, the United Kingdom, France, Italy and Poland, together on this task.” Asked for a name, he said in German: “It is not about people here, but that Putin is ready to have talks.”

“Europeans must take back the initiative in discussions with Russia, and it is at that point that the format will be determined,” the French president said.

“Europe has consigned empires and zones of influence to the dustbin of history and we will never allow for them to come to life again,” Costa said. And: “the future of European security cannot be discussed and decided without Europe.” Martin, the host, said: “I think the Americans accept there should be a European voice at the table.”

Witkoff said the next round is “on the schedule”; its date and place are the first marker.

Martin and Zelensky both said the Coalition of the Willing meets in Berlin next week, the next occasion for Europe to name who it sends.

Ushakov said the parameters of the exchange are still being agreed; Zelensky’s own figure on 11 November was 1,000 to 1,200 a side.

Ushakov says the Americans back Putin’s proposal on Kostiantynivka; Zelensky did not mention the town at Baldonnel, and Kyiv’s answer is still to come.

Ushakov said Moscow will speak to Witkoff and Kushner again “before the meeting of Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump in China”, at the APEC summit in Shenzhen.

Kushner says Putin accepted Europeans at the table. No Russian official had said so on the record by early Friday.

Costa, Merz and Macron did not say which Europeans would go, or whether Moscow gets a say over the choice.

Zelensky, Kushner and Ushakov did not say how many prisoners each side will release, or when.