The talks are moving anyway. Jared Kushner announced on Saturday that the focus of America's Ukraine diplomacy is now on bringing Moscow and Europe into direct engagement, and on preparing the agenda for the next round of trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine. "Several new ideas emerged from these discussions and are now being explored," Kushner wrote. "Some may lead to breakthroughs directly, while others may evolve into new proposals that help bridge the remaining gaps."
Why it matters: the endgame of Europe's biggest war in generations is being negotiated right now, with Americans at the centre of the table — and the terms being floated, territory against NATO membership, would shape where American troops stand in Europe and what NATO guarantees for decades. What gets agreed in these rooms decides whether the war ends on terms that hold, or on terms that invite the next one.
Kushner's words came in his own post on X, after a week in which he and Steve Witkoff met President Putin in Moscow and President Zelenskyy in Dublin, following the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi — the first face-to-face round between Russian and Ukrainian delegations since February, which ended Wednesday with plans for a new prisoner exchange and further talks, but no wider deal. "Following our trilateral meetings and subsequent discussions with Presidents Putin and Zelenskyy, Steve Witkoff and I have remained in close consultation with Russia, Ukraine, and our European partners on next steps," Kushner wrote. "Our focus is now on facilitating direct engagement between Moscow and European partners and preparing the agenda for the next round of trilateral talks." He added that NATO will remain a "critical pillar" of European security, with credible security guarantees for Ukraine.
Europe is being brought to the table directly: leaders agreed on Friday to send representatives of five countries — the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy and Poland — to future rounds of the talks. No date, venue or format for direct Europe-to-Russia talks has been announced.
Zelenskyy answered in the same breath, and his answer was a warning. The United States, he said, had raised the possibility of a new security framework for Europe — the very subject of the Russian paper reported below. "In my view, this can be dangerous," Zelenskyy told reporters. "This should not be the main agenda." He warned that broader talks about Europe's security could let Putin seek changes to NATO's military presence, including the withdrawal of American troops, and that reopening the continent's security arrangements is what leads to wars and escalations.
And Zelenskyy revealed the question Washington put to Kyiv for the first time: "The Americans raised the question: 'What if Ukraine joins NATO? Would Ukraine withdraw from Donbas?' This was the first time this issue had been raised." His answer was no — Ukraine will not surrender its territory, he said, any such decision would need the Ukrainian public, and he rejected outright Moscow's demand that Ukraine write neutrality into its constitution. One honesty note belongs here: the Donbas-for-NATO question is Zelenskyy's account of the talks. The United States has not confirmed it.
Where it stands: the next trilateral round is being prepared, Europe is taking seats at the table, and President Trump meets Putin next week in Shenzhen, at the summit with China's Xi — though officials say Ukraine is not expected to be discussed there. What Moscow brings to that table is the paper below, obtained by The New York Times: pull NATO back to 1997, keep the seized land, no ceasefire. Kushner's "new ideas" now have to cross exactly that.
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Russia has put its price for ending the Ukraine war in writing, and the paper is not a ceasefire offer. Circulated at this week's talks in Abu Dhabi and obtained by The New York Times, it demands that NATO pull its troops and bases back to their 1997 positions, rule out any further expansion and end military activity in Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe, the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Western arms supplies to Ukraine must stop. Britain and France must rule out using their nuclear weapons to defend other European countries. And Kyiv could join the European Union only if it stayed out of the bloc's common defence policy. A person involved in the talks handed the Times a copy of the unsigned paper, dated Tuesday, and a second person familiar with the negotiations confirmed it is genuine. It sets out Moscow's opening position.
Why it matters: this is the bill Moscow is presenting to President Donald Trump's peace push, days before he meets Vladimir Putin face to face in Shenzhen, China. Nothing in the paper offers America or its allies anything — every line asks the West to give ground. For the countries that joined NATO after 1997, the demand is not abstract: it would strip the alliance's protection out of their territory and leave them facing Russia alone. If this is the starting point, there is no quick end to the war.
The demands are not new — that is the point. The paper repeats many of Putin's December 2021 demands, in some cases word for word: the ultimatum Moscow issued two months before launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, now laid on the table again with new demands added. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Thursday that accepting Russia's terms would pose a direct threat to Poland's security.
In Abu Dhabi, the Russian side held up the Cold War itself as the model for how Europe could look once the war ends — an era when each side understood the other's sphere. It is a rare, plain look at what Moscow actually wants: not a pause in the fighting, but a Europe rearranged on Russia's terms.
The Abu Dhabi talks brought American, Russian and Ukrainian officials together in person for the first time since February. A U.S. official told the Times that Trump's envoys, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, urged Moscow to put forward proposals that included concrete steps by Russia itself to ease tensions. Kushner and Witkoff met Putin in Moscow on Thursday, and Putin told them Russia's 2021 proposal still reflected his approach to European security, according to his foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov. The envoys then briefed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin, where Kushner said any deal would require the Europeans to be at the table. Russian officials signalled that Putin could still show some flexibility beyond the paper.
Trump and Putin are due to meet next week at an Asia-Pacific summit in Shenzhen, for their second face-to-face meeting of Trump's current term. Whether Moscow moves off the 1997 line is now the whole question of that meeting — because on the paper as written, this is surely no deal.
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