Progress made at meeting with Putin, new trilateral talks agreed – Witkoff
US presidential special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner concluded their meeting with Russian leader Putin in Moscow on November 12. Witkoff said the sides had made progress and scheduled a new round of trilateral talks, which Europeans would join.
CNN reports this, according to Censor.NET.
US special envoys’ comments
Witkoff told CNN at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport shortly before departure:
"I think progress has been made. I think that happened earlier today. People didn’t think we were going to resume trilateral talks. We have resumed them. We have scheduled a new meeting. That is exactly what President Trump wants to see."
He did not specify the date, location or format of the new meeting.
Europeans at the table
Witkoff also confirmed that European representatives would join the next talks: "They are our partners, and it is important for them to be involved."
Kushner described the talks as "very thorough and detailed discussions of all topics", which he believed would inform the next multilateral discussions.
According to him, "the Europeans want this war to end for good and be followed by a long peace."
Kremlin’s response
Russian presidential special envoy Kirill Dmitriev told CNN that a "consensus" was growing that working on European security was an important step.
At the same time, CNN notes that Moscow had previously resisted attempts to bring Europe to the main negotiating table: Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had described the Europeans’ presence in Abu Dhabi as an "unattractive approach", while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that no contacts with EU representatives had been planned or taken place there.
What comes next
Witkoff and Kushner are now due to travel to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy and brief him on the meeting in Moscow. According to CNN, Kyiv assessed the two days of talks in Abu Dhabi as having yielded progress on certain issues but no clear resolution. CNN recalls that the talks ended without a breakthrough.
Background
- On November 12, US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived at the Kremlin for talks with Putin following a trilateral meeting between the United States, Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi.
- Following their talks with Putin, they are expected to travel to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Dublin, where he arrived for the European Political Community summit.
- On November 11, two days of Ukraine–US–Russia talks concluded in Abu Dhabi, resulting in an agreement on a large-scale prisoner exchange. After the trilateral meetings, the Ukrainian delegation held separate talks with European representatives who were also present in the UAE.
