One breakthrough at Russia-Ukraine talks

My thanks to Naomi O’Leary, Mark Paul, Jack Power and Derek Scally for their excellent Global Briefings while I was away.Donald Trump’s peace envoys were in Moscow and Kyiv at the weekend in an attempt to revive talks about ending the war in Ukraine. There could be a supporting role for the Europeans.Giving peace a chanceGiven their track record, the arrival of American peace envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner into any conflict zone is unlikely to inspire confidence. As NBC’s Richard Engel pointed out to Kushner in Kyiv on Sunday, their efforts have left Gaza still a wasteland, the war in Iran continuing and the conflict in Ukraine intensifying.But while their talks with Vladimir Putin in Moscow and Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Kyiv failed to produce a breakthrough, all sides agreed that the discussions were substantive. And a senior Ukrainian official told Agence France Presse that Trump’s envoys had brought more effective proposals for ending the war.READ MORE“It’s not the same as it was before. This one now is more effective. They’re still talking. This is actually the most important part,” the official said.The meetings followed a visit to Moscow last month by Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director John Ratcliffe, the first such trip since his predecessor Bill Burns went before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Media reports suggested that Ratcliffe may have warned Moscow against attacking a Nato member state, as well as urging a return to the negotiations that stalled six months ago in Geneva.After the CIA director’s visit, treasury secretary Scott Bessent invited Russian finance minister Anton Siluanov to the G20 finance meeting in Asheville, North Carolina. And when Witkoff and Kushner met Putin on Saturday, they discussed economic co-operation between the US and Russia as well as the war in Ukraine.Much of the reporting of the weekend’s diplomacy has focused on Zelenskiy’s apparent suggestion that the war would probably continue into the winter. But while both sides are gearing up for intense fighting into the spring of 2027, the Ukrainian president’s words were more tentative than the headlines suggest. “We very much hope that we will be able to reach agreements with our American partners, and we are counting on the support of our European partners if the war continues in winter – and this is how it appears at the moment,” he said.Kushner called for a return to trilateral talks involving the US, Russia and Ukraine, a proposal Zelenskiy endorsed. But in what could be an important development, the Ukrainian president and the US envoys were joined for the final hour of their talks in Kyiv by the national security advisers of Germany, France and Britain.Berlin, Paris and London have become the de facto European negotiators on Ukraine, hosting a summit in London with Zelenskiy earlier this year and sending their ambassadors into the Russian foreign ministry for talks in June. Former senior officials from Germany, France and Britain were involved in back-channel talks with former Russian officials in Vienna during the summer.Zelenskiy said on Sunday that there will be further talks involving the US, Ukraine and the three western European powers, although he declined to say where or when they would take place. After a weekend of diplomacy, Russia and Ukraine appear willing to resume tripartite talks with the US, even if the fighting continues while they are negotiating.The European Union, whose member states are paying much of the cost of the war but has fumbled on diplomacy, will not have a seat at the negotiating table. But three European countries have at least gained access to an antechamber from which they may be able to exercise some influence. Please let me know what you think and send your comments, thoughts or suggestions for topics you would like to see covered to denis.globalbriefing@irishtimes.com