US envoys say Europe will join next Russia-Ukraine talks round

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday for about two hours. They then travelled to Dublin, where they met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for more than an hour.

Witkoff and Zelensky said Europe will join the next round of talks, which has been agreed. They did not say which countries or how many. Zelensky said: "Next meeting, Europe will be during negotiations, will be a negotiation team – not some way, not separately. They will have a voice."

Kushner said one aim of the Putin meeting was to win Putin's blessing for European representatives to join. The US and Zelensky want Europe to name a single person to negotiate with Moscow. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Europe must first name a representative.

Peskov also said: "The Europeans squabble like spiders in a jar. If someone takes the initiative to establish contact with the Russian side, such people are facing ostracism." The Independent reported that Russia does not want European countries in direct negotiations, complaining that they finance and supply Ukraine's military effort.

Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov called Thursday's talks substantive, constructive, frank and useful. He said Putin reminded the envoys of Moscow's 2021 proposals demanding that NATO roll back its deployments in Central and Eastern Europe, and that Russia will update them with fresh considerations.

Putin said any European troops sent to Ukraine after a ceasefire would be absolutely unacceptable and would be regarded as a security threat and legitimate target. He said: "In other words, the war would resume immediately." He added that Russia regards its border with Ukraine, to be sealed by a peace deal, as covering four regions it annexed in 2022 but never fully controlled.

Earlier this week Witkoff and Kushner brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, the first direct discussion between Ukrainian and Russian delegations in nine months. They produced no major breakthrough beyond an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners, whose exact number has not been announced.

Zelensky is in Dublin for a meeting of more than 40 European countries that includes NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Rutte said the US, Europe and Ukraine are very much aligned on security guarantees and that a peace deal or at least a ceasefire is needed. Fighting continues along a 1,200-kilometre front line, and both sides reported overnight drone attacks.