Author: HARRIET MORRIS
US President Donald Trump’s envoys met on Thursday with President Vladimir Putin as Washington sought new momentum in peace efforts after two days of US-mediated negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian delegations.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also Trump’s son-in-law, brokered the talks in Abu Dhabi, the Capital of the UAE. Those were the first direct discussions between representatives of Moscow and Kyiv in nine months as the push for peace stalled.
The two days of talks produced no major breakthrough, aside from an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners, with the exact figure still to be announced.
Kushner and Witkoff went straight to the Kremlin to brief Putin in a meeting that lasted about two hours, and they are scheduled to fly to Dublin, Ireland, for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as the conflict approaches the five-year mark.
Kushner said that one of the goals of the meeting with Putin was to get the Russian leader’s blessing for European representatives to be part of the talks, which are looking at the continent’s broader security arrangements.
The US and Zelenskyy want Europe to appoint a single person to negotiate with Moscow.