This week’s efforts to resolve the Ukraine conflict yielded “meaningful progress,” US President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner has said. He announced plans to address the Russia-Ukraine territorial dispute and wider European security order in parallel.
In a statement on X on Friday, Kushner summarized three days of intensive diplomacy that began with trilateral Russia-Ukraine-US negotiations in Abu Dhabi. He and fellow Trump envoy Steve Witkoff subsequently met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky in Dublin, before consulting with security advisers from Ukraine and European countries.
“We have made meaningful progress in understanding both sides’ concerns, identifying possible solutions, and establishing a path forward,” Kushner wrote, while acknowledging that “significant differences remain.”
He went on to say that both Russia and Ukraine “have now agreed to expand the next round of negotiations to include our European partners,” adding that the expanded format will allow discussions on “broader postwar European security arrangements alongside the territorial issues between Ukraine and Russia.”
Kushner stressed that a settlement will require credible security guarantees, mechanisms to prevent renewed confrontation, and mutual commitments to de-escalation. “We will begin discussing these interconnected issues in parallel, with the understanding that, apart from humanitarian measures, nothing will be finalized until a comprehensive agreement is reached.”
Despite the announcement, Moscow has not confirmed that it agreed to direct European participation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has argued that European governments are sending contradictory signals, claiming to support peace while preparing to deploy troops to Ukraine in case of a ceasefire, which Moscow has rejected.
“They are moving toward an expansion of the war, but they talk about peace. A vicious circle,” he said on Thursday.
Peskov noted that European governments are struggling to decide on an envoy, likening their infighting to “spiders in a jar.” He also suggested that politicians who seek contact with Moscow face ostracism from their European counterparts.
Kushner said on Wednesday: “if Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation.”
During the two-day Russia-Ukraine-US talks in Abu Dhabi, European officials held separate consultations with the US and Ukrainian delegations, but were not included in the main negotiations. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked the situation, saying: “Well, they flew to Abu Dhabi. Let them sit there in the hotel.”
According to Politico, the EU is divided into at least three camps over who should represent it in talks. One favors European Council President Antonio Costa, who the paper describes as the most broadly acceptable candidate due to his institutional role. Another includes France and Germany, “both of which are reluctant to surrender their own places at the negotiating table to Brussels.”
The third and “loneliest” group reportedly backs EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas, who is hawkish on Russia. According to Politico, some EU diplomats believe she “could put off the Kremlin and make her a liability.”