US envoy Jared Kushner works to broker direct Europe-Russia talks on Ukraine
United States envoy Jared Kushner announced on Saturday that he and fellow envoy Steve Witkoff are working to facilitate direct negotiations between Europe and Moscow to advance Ukraine peace talks. The initiative follows Tuesday's meetings in Abu Dhabi, which failed to yield a broader peace breakthrough but produced a prisoner exchange. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who stressed that European security cannot be managed without Europe, revealed that American negotiators in Abu Dhabi asked whether Ukraine would withdraw troops from the Donbas region in exchange for NATO membership.
Europe's direct role is growing, with the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, and Poland agreeing to send representatives to future negotiations. These five nations have also signaled readiness to deploy troops under a "coalition of the willing" to safeguard a future ceasefire. French President Emmanuel Macron urged the bloc to state its post-war terms clearly to Russia, noting Ukraine holds Europe's largest conventional army and belongs in NATO. Although the Kremlin expressed openness to European dialogue, it faulted the bloc for lacking concrete proposals. The diplomacy comes amid staggering costs, with November leaks from Russia's statistics agency showing at least 450,000 Russian soldiers have died.
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