Ukraine War News: US Envoys Meet Putin in Moscow

The ukraine war news out of Moscow on Thursday is the next step in the most active American peace push in months. United States envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff are in the Russian capital to meet President Vladimir Putin, carrying the results of two days of American-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, which ended with a large prisoner exchange both sides described as potentially the biggest of the war. The envoys fly on to Dublin on Thursday night to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Kushner announced the Moscow trip on Wednesday, at a news conference in Abu Dhabi after the second day of talks had ended. “Steve and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin to go over what was discussed today and to try to make more progress on some of the issues that we discussed because we see some openings and some opportunities there,” he said. But the talks had produced one agreement already, and the envoys arrive in Moscow with something tangible to build on.

The prisoner swap: the one deal already agreed

The clearest outcome of the Abu Dhabi talks is the prisoner exchange. Kushner told reporters the two sides had agreed to what he called the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners of the war, with final numbers to be settled on Thursday. Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia, part of the process since 2022, agreed the exchange could be the largest since the fighting began. Zelensky, writing on Telegram, called it an “important humanitarian agreement.”

A Russian military official gave the first indication of the scale. General Staff official Alexander Zorin said the exchange would involve more than 1,000 people on each side and could take place within two to three weeks, according to the Interfax news service. If that timetable holds, it would be a major release by the standards of this war.

The numbers are not final, and that is part of what the Moscow meeting is for. American and Ukrainian officials told Axios the exact figure would be set during Thursday’s meetings. Until both leaders have signed off, the exchange remains an agreement in principle rather than a done deal.

A new Europe-Russia security framework takes shape

The second track is more ambitious, and more uncertain. According to Axios, citing people familiar with the discussions, the proposed Europe-Russia security framework emerged as a key focus of the Abu Dhabi negotiations. American officials used the talks to press Moscow to present fresh proposals addressing its security concerns, and to outline the reciprocal steps it would take to reduce tensions with European countries.

At the Wednesday news conference, Kushner set out the American position in plain terms. “We told the Russians they have their desires and fears, but they have to provide different de-escalation and different proposals as well if they want Europe to be able to receive those proposals in a good way,” he said. In other words, Moscow has to say what it would do to reassure European countries that it would not attack them in the future.

The Russian delegation’s starting point, according to Axios, was an old grievance. Russian negotiators argued that Putin had ordered the invasion because then-President Joe Biden had not answered a 2021 letter setting out Moscow’s security concerns. Kushner and Witkoff replied that the international situation had changed significantly since 2021 and urged Moscow to put forward a new security proposal rather than relitigate a five-year-old letter.

The American plan is to negotiate the peace agreement and the broader security architecture at the same time, while putting any new security arrangement into effect only after the war has ended. Washington has also made clear to European governments that it will not enter into a security agreement with Russia unless Europe and Ukraine are on board, and that Moscow will not be given a veto over Europe’s security choices.

Moscow has shown interest in the wider conversation, at least in public. Vladimir Medinsky, who led the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi, indicated that Russia wants a broader security arrangement with Europe as part of any settlement. “In Ukraine, an abscess has simply burst. The entire body needs to be treated — a Band-Aid won’t do the trick,” he said. European diplomats, however, told Axios that the idea still faces considerable resistance and many unresolved questions.

NATO, Europe and the fight for a seat at the table

Europe’s place in the talks is the third question the Moscow meeting will test. European officials were in Abu Dhabi this week for separate discussions with American and Ukrainian negotiators, and the American and Ukrainian teams briefed senior diplomats from Germany, Britain, France, Italy, the European Union and NATO before and after the main sessions. But the Europeans were not in the room with the Russians.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the European presence in the Emirates, saying their involvement was not “a promising approach.” When reporters asked whether any contact had taken place between the Russian team and European representatives, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said plainly: “No such contacts were planned, and none took place.” Russia has consistently resisted a multilateral format, preferring to deal with Washington alone.

Washington is pushing in the opposite direction. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Paris at a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of Seven on Tuesday, said the administration’s goal was to expand future talks so that Europeans are “represented at that table directly.” Letting European representatives take part could, according to Axios, make European governments more willing to discuss a broader security arrangement with Russia before the war ends. Zelensky made the same demand. “We believe that Europe must be represented at all stages of substantive diplomacy,” he said on Wednesday.

Two days of tough talks in Abu Dhabi

The Moscow meeting is the product of two days of talks that were, by the Americans’ own account, hard going. The delegations met at the Emirates Palace Mandarin Oriental in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday, in the first American-brokered trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine since February, when the process was suspended during the war with Iran. It was their first meeting, with American mediators present, in nine months.

The first day ran for four hours. The second day ended after less than two hours. According to Axios, the opening exchanges were tense and at times emotional, with both sides airing grievances after nine months without direct talks. Kushner and Witkoff told the teams that the aim was to finish the round with options that could be put to the leaders of both countries. “We had pretty tough discussions,” Kushner said afterward.

The people in the room told the story of a negotiation conducted between adversaries. Ukraine’s chief delegate was Rustem Umerov, the head of the country’s foreign intelligence service, joined by Kyrylo Budanov, a close Zelensky adviser who leads Kyiv’s presidential administration. Across the table sat Dmitry Minaev, the head of counterintelligence for Russia’s FSB security service, whom Ukrainian intelligence has accused of orchestrating an assassination attempt against Budanov in 2019. The American mediators were Kushner, Witkoff and General Alexus Grynkewich, commander of United States European Command.

By the end of the second day, the gap was still wide. Medinsky, the top Russian negotiator, gave little sign that Moscow’s demands had changed. “In some areas, we reached a mutual understanding. In others, we did not. This conversation will, without a doubt, continue,” he said. Umerov said there had been progress on certain issues, including security matters, but that “significant differences” remain. Arakhamia said Russia had arrived with “very strict directives” and called the round one of the toughest since 2022.

What happens next: Dublin, Zelensky and the hard questions

After Moscow, the envoys fly to Dublin on Thursday night to meet Zelensky, who is attending an informal meeting of European Union leaders scheduled for Friday, November 13. The Dublin meeting is where the prisoner numbers are expected to be finalized and where the proposals from Abu Dhabi will be put to the Ukrainian president. Kushner said the envoys would debrief Zelensky and “further explore some of the ideas that we came up with here today,” carrying whatever they hear from Putin directly to Kyiv’s leader.

The hard questions have not moved. The war is now in its fifth year, and Russian forces hold about a fifth of Ukrainian territory. Kyiv insists that any settlement must begin with a ceasefire and include security guarantees strong enough to prevent another Russian attack. Moscow has resisted a ceasefire first, preferring to negotiate a broad European security framework before settling the specifics of the war. Zelensky wrote on Telegram: “The parties discussed views on security guarantees, and the first step must be ending this war and ensuring Ukraine’s security.”

A source familiar with the discussions told Axios: “Zelensky won’t agree to a deal until he knows what happens next regarding security guarantees, and Putin wants to know this, too. This is why the security issue is so important.” That is why the framework proposal matters: it is the first time the Americans have tried to answer the guarantees question and the European security question in the same negotiation.

The Trump administration’s gamble

The shuttle is also a gamble for the Trump administration. In recent weeks, Trump has announced significant concessions to Moscow, raising concern in European capitals that Washington may try to force an end to the war on terms favorable to Russia. Rubio framed the stakes before the talks opened, saying Trump, who had just suffered a stinging defeat in the November 3 midterm elections, had made resolving the conflict “a priority.”

The diplomacy runs through two men with no formal place in the chain of command. Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, acts as one of the country’s top diplomats despite holding no official role in the administration. Witkoff, the Middle East envoy, has become the administration’s point man on Ukraine. Their schedule, Abu Dhabi to Moscow to Dublin in three days, is a peace process run by personal envoys.

For now, the process is alive, and that is more than could be said for most of the past nine months. The prisoner swap gives it a result. The security framework gives it a direction. The Moscow meeting will show whether Putin is prepared to engage with either. If he is not, the shuttle will have produced a humanitarian agreement and little else.

Source: The Washington Post, CNN and Axios