President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took Ukraine's case to Dublin on Thursday, addressing the leaders of around 50 countries at the European Political Community summit in the Convention Centre - the largest political and diplomatic event Ireland has ever hosted, held during Ireland's presidency of the EU Council. His message was that Europe must stop watching the peace process from outside it. Looking ahead to his briefing from President Trump's envoys, he told the summit: "We will talk with them about the results of these negotiations over the past few days and it is very good that Europeans are now part of these talks, not directly yet, and not yet when the Russians are at the table, but Europeans are already involved, and we need to make sure that Europe becomes a regular part of these negotiations." He described the Abu Dhabi talks as "serious, not empty," pointed to the prisoner-of-war exchange agreed there as important, and pressed the question of security guarantees, warning that what Washington and Moscow are discussing is "some kind of new security framework between Europe and Russia" that Europe itself must pay close attention to. European leaders in Dublin backed a proposed declaration that Ukraine's path to peace must be decided with Ukraine, and matters affecting Europe's security decided with Europeans.
He also drew the line Dublin will be remembered for: there is no ceasefire in sight, and Ukraine will not trade away its land. "We need to be clear and never recognise Russia's occupation of Ukrainian territory in any way," he said, warning that "if someone in America is making decisions that basically treat Ukrainian territory as if it is not Ukrainian, then this tells us where things are going." And he carried his Starshield complaint to the summit floor in person: the speed restriction on SpaceX's military satellite service over occupied Ukraine - terminals cut off above 100mph - is limiting Ukraine's ability to shoot down Russia's fast jet-powered drones. "This means more Russian strikes get through, and more of our people are killed, our civilians are killed by Russia," he said. That restriction remains his stated concern: Kyiv says it is still trying to get the details from the American side, and neither the United States government nor SpaceX has publicly confirmed imposing it.
On Wednesday evening, standing beside Taoiseach Micheal Martin at Government Buildings, Zelenskyy had made the same argument in shorter form: "This war is in Ukraine, and ending this war without Europe's participation would be unjust, and it would be impossible." He urged European leaders to choose a single representative for the talks by the end of November. The two leaders also discussed Ireland and Ukraine co-producing drones - naval drones first - and Ireland taking an active part in the Shelter Coalition. Opening the summit, Martin told the leaders: "The people of Ukraine deserve a just and lasting peace. They deserve to determine their own future." From Dublin, Zelenskyy was due to sit down with Witkoff and Kushner themselves on Thursday evening for the American account of the Kremlin meeting - the briefing reported in full below.
For Americans, what was said in Dublin cuts both ways, and both matter. A Europe that takes a permanent seat at the table and underwrites its own security is the burden-sharing Washington has demanded for years, and it points to a settlement the United States does not have to carry alone. At the same time, Kyiv's refusal to recognise any occupation means the territorial deadlock the envoys flew into in Moscow - set out below - is not about to be wished away, and every month this war continues is another month of American money, American weapons and pressure on the fuel and food prices American families pay. A peace that holds is the only outcome that ends that bill.
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The talks are back on. President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner walked out of the Kremlin on Thursday with the outcome they flew to Moscow to get: the trilateral peace process between the United States, Russia and Ukraine has been restarted, a new meeting has been set, and European representatives will be brought into the next round of negotiations.
"People didn't think that we were going to restart trilateral," Witkoff told CNN at Moscow's Vnukovo Airport as the envoys prepared to leave. "We've restarted it. We've set a new meeting." He said progress had been made earlier in the day. No date or venue for the next round was announced.
On Europe, Witkoff said a European representative will be present at the next stage of the talks. "The Europeans will join at the next meeting, which we consider to be a very important moment because they are our partners and it's important to us that they take part," he said. At the Kremlin table, Kushner had told Putin that winning his agreement to include the Europeans was one of the aims of the trip, as the process moves toward the wider security arrangements for the continent after the war. The Kremlin's own account was more measured: Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov called the Moscow talks constructive and said direct talks with Kyiv would continue, and said Putin will continue the discussion with President Trump at the APEC summit in China later this month. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a European seat would first require the European Union to designate one common representative - a step Zelenskyy has asked European leaders to settle by the end of the month.
What did not move is the war's hardest question. Territory remains deadlocked: Kyiv still rejects Putin's demand that Ukraine surrender all of the eastern Donbas. That is why the warning Putin delivered at the same table - set out in full below, in the original report of the meeting - still hangs over everything the envoys are building. Zelenskyy, for his part, has called this moment a "window of opportunity" and said a result could come by the beginning of 2027.
Separately, Zelenskyy claimed on Thursday that Ukraine's battlefield communications are being squeezed again. In a social media post, he said Ukrainian units have recorded "significant disruptions" to Starshield - the military version of Elon Musk's Starlink satellite network - "for several days now," across the whole front line and the Russian-occupied territories, with terminals cut off once they move faster than 161 kilometres per hour (100 mph). He said the restriction is hampering Ukraine's interceptor drones as they chase Russia's jet-powered attack drones, and that some Russian strikes have already got through because of it. That is Zelenskyy's claim, and it is carried here as his claim only: at the time of this report, neither the United States government nor SpaceX had publicly confirmed any new restriction, who imposed it - if it was imposed - is not established, and Kyiv says it is still seeking answers from Washington. A similar speed cap appeared in October and was lifted on October 24.
For Americans, this is the President's central promise being worked in the open. The war has drawn heavily on American taxpayers and on U.S. weapons stockpiles for nearly five years; a settlement negotiated under American leadership, with Europe now expected to carry its share at the table instead of leaving the burden on the United States, points toward lower pressure on energy and food prices at home, an end to the steady drain on U.S. arsenals, and no American soldiers sent to hold a line in Europe. From Moscow, the envoys flew on to Dublin to brief Zelenskyy on everything Putin said - including the warning that follows.
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Russian President Vladimir Putin told President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner at the Kremlin on Thursday that any foreign forces on Ukrainian territory are "absolutely unacceptable" to Moscow and "will be considered legitimate targets for the Russian Armed Forces" — and that if European troops entered Ukraine after a peace settlement, "the war would immediately resume."
The warning came in the meeting's open exchanges, as Putin said Moscow wanted any settlement to be an "eternal peace" — while making clear he will not water down Russia's territorial demands. The state border is the only line of control Moscow recognises, Kyiv's proposed "grey zones" were rejected, and after about two and a half hours no agreement to end the war was announced.
Putin also proposed a humanitarian evacuation of 400 to 500 civilians from Kostiantynivka in Donetsk — a town Russia says its forces control, which Ukraine disputes. The American side pressed him to let European representatives join the next round of talks: Kushner said one goal of the meeting was to win Putin's blessing for Europeans at the table, while Moscow answered that Europe has not yet agreed on a single negotiator and that no concrete European peace proposals have been submitted. The envoys now head to Dublin to brief President Zelenskyy on what Moscow said.
The warning is aimed squarely at the security guarantees Kyiv and Europe want behind any deal — troops on the ground to stop Russia attacking again. For American families, the stake is whether the peace President Trump is pushing for ends this war for good or merely pauses it: on Putin's own words in that room, a European force inside Ukraine is the tripwire that starts it again — and the United States, which has bankrolled Ukraine's defence, would be pulled straight back into paying for a war it had just ended.
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Vladimir Putin used his Kremlin meeting with President Trump's envoys on Thursday to plant his flag on the question every peace plan runs into: who actually holds the ground in Ukraine. With Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner across the table from him, Putin argued that Kyiv's version of the map cannot be settled by claims. "Until now, we have been hearing from the Kyiv authorities that certain territories are controlled by them, while others are not controlled by us," he said, in remarks at the meeting carried in footage of the talks. "This could go on indefinitely, because going there and seeing what is actually happening is not easy under the conditions created by modern weapons."
It is the sound of the central obstacle being stated out loud, in front of the Americans who flew in to move the Abu Dhabi process forward. A ceasefire or a settlement has to draw a line somewhere; Putin's point is that the line cannot even be verified — neither side, he argues, can simply go and look. That is the argument Trump's team now has to answer if the prisoner exchange agreed in principle in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday is to become anything larger. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov and Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev — the man who welcomed the Americans at the airport — sat beside Putin as he made it. No readout of the meeting had been issued as this update was published, and the envoys are due in Dublin on Thursday evening.
For Americans, this is the moment the peace process stops being statements and becomes the hard question underneath it: the United States has spent billions backing Ukraine and is now brokering the endgame, and whether any deal can hold depends on exactly the thing Putin says cannot be checked — who holds what, and who gets to say so. A settlement built on a map nobody can verify is a settlement that can collapse the first time it is tested, and with it the money, the weapons and the years America has put into this war.
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President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow on Thursday to brief President Vladimir Putin in person on the two days of U.S.-brokered trilateral talks that ended in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday. They were met at Vnukovo airport by Putin's own envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, who posted a photograph of the handshake beside the aircraft — Witkoff in a tan coat, Kushner alongside under an umbrella on the wet tarmac — with the words: "Welcoming Steve and Jared to Moscow. 🕊️"
The mission was set out by Kushner himself in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday: "Steve and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin to go over what was discussed today." The Kremlin has confirmed the meeting is happening. Putin's aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the envoys were bringing the results of the Abu Dhabi round to the Russian president directly: "We don't yet know the results of the talks in Abu Dhabi. But they're bringing something."
What they are carrying is one concrete agreement and one hard deadlock. In Abu Dhabi, Russia and Ukraine agreed in principle to a major exchange of prisoners of war — reported at more than 1,000 men on each side, which would make it the largest swap of the war — with the final numbers due to be settled on Thursday. On the question that decides the war, territory, there was no breakthrough: Russia's chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, ruled out any land-for-peace trade, and no ceasefire was agreed. Hours after the talks ended, Russian ballistic missiles and drones struck Kyiv again, killing a 44-year-old woman in a Solomianskyi apartment block.
For Witkoff, the Kremlin meeting is his tenth in-person session with Putin. The envoys' day does not end in Moscow: they are due in Dublin on Thursday evening to meet President Zelenskyy and report the other side of the conversation — the same direct, both-capitals shuttle that President Trump has made the engine of his push to end the war. No readout from the Kremlin meeting had been published as this article went out; what Putin says to the proposal the envoys are carrying is the next fact that matters, and it will be reported here when it is on the record.
For ordinary families, the stakes in this room are not abstract. A prisoner exchange on this scale means more than a thousand sons and husbands walking home on each side. And every step that moves this war toward its end eases the pressure the fighting keeps on fuel and food prices far beyond Ukraine — the same prices American households have been paying at the pump all autumn. Diplomacy that brings men home and takes weapons off cities is the cheapest outcome there is, and Thursday's meeting is where its next chapter gets written.
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