Putin Agrees to Let Europe Join Next Ukraine Talks as Envoys Push Largest Prisoner Exchange

DUBLIN — President Vladimir Putin has agreed to let European representatives join the next round of talks on ending Russia's war in Ukraine, according to the two American envoys who carried the message from Moscow to Kyiv in a single day of shuttle diplomacy — but the Kremlin's own account of the meeting was far more guarded, and the hardest questions, over territory and security guarantees, remain untouched.

Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump's special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law, met Putin in the Kremlin on Thursday, then flew to Dublin to brief President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the same evening. The trip closed a week that began with the first direct Russian-Ukrainian talks in nine months, in Abu Dhabi, and ended with the negotiating table about to get bigger — and the argument about what that table is for about to get harder.

A day of shuttle diplomacy

Witkoff told reporters after the Kremlin meeting that Putin had agreed to European participation in the next round, a step he cast as a breakthrough. "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 told Russian state television.

Speaking to CNN at Moscow's Vnukovo airport before departing, Witkoff said progress had been made and the process restarted. "I think progress was made. I think it was made earlier today. People didn't think that we were going to restart trilateral. We've restarted it. We've set a new meeting," he said.

In Dublin, Zelenskyy welcomed the news. He said it mattered that the process had resumed after the Abu Dhabi round, and that Europeans should be part of the negotiating team because the war is in Europe. He also said the talks had produced movement on the exchange of prisoners, calling the planned swap "a real result."

The Kremlin, however, offered a narrower version of events. Presidential aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed that trilateral talks would continue but questioned the prospect of a European role, and Putin himself told the envoys that Moscow had never broken off dialogue with Europe — while urging Washington to work with its European allies to establish whether they wanted peace or war in Ukraine.

The largest prisoner exchange of the war

The most concrete outcome of the day was humanitarian. Kushner wrote on X that the two sides were working toward the largest prisoner exchange since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, "potentially reuniting thousands of people with their families," without giving figures or a date.

The exchange was the main deliverable agreed at the Abu Dhabi talks on November 10 and 11, which ended without a breakthrough on ending the war but with an understanding on a large-scale swap. Zelenskyy said in Dublin that preparations were under way for what could become the biggest exchange since the war began, and that the two sides were counting on it going ahead.

Putin also proposed a joint Russian-Ukrainian humanitarian mission to Kostiantynivka, a town in eastern Ukraine that he said Moscow controlled — a claim Kyiv disputes. The proposal, as described by the Russian side, would address the civilian situation in the town, where fighting has continued. No details of the mission's scope, timing or the terms under which it would operate were made public.

Europe's seat — and the price attached

The decision to bring Europe into the next round was presented by the American envoys as a victory for Kyiv and for the continent's capitals, which have spent months on the margins of a process run by Washington, Moscow and Kyiv. European leaders have waited for a seat at the table since the war began, and Zelenskyy has argued consistently that no settlement can hold without them.

But the concession came with a condition that alarmed some observers. Kushner said expanding the talks would allow the parties to tackle "broader postwar European security arrangements" alongside the territorial issues between Ukraine and Russia — language that echoes one of Moscow's longest-standing demands: a redrawing of the security order in Europe. Analysts quoted in early coverage of the meeting noted that agreeing to put that question on the agenda handed Putin a significant point, even as the envoys presented European participation as a gain.

Putin, for his part, used the meeting to restate his red lines. He told the envoys that the presence of any foreign troops on Ukrainian territory was "absolutely unacceptable" to Russia, a position that goes directly to the question of the security guarantees Kyiv says any settlement must contain. He also warned that deploying European troops in Ukraine after a peace agreement risked restarting the war.

The scepticism in European capitals was on display even before the envoys left Moscow. President Emmanuel Macron of France voiced frustration on social media that there was "no more U.S. support" for Ukraine in its war against Russia, a reminder that the expanded table will bring its own disagreements with it.

What remains unresolved

For all the movement on format and prisoners, the substance of a settlement has not moved. Russia holds about a fifth of Ukraine's territory, and Kyiv refuses to give up the rest of its eastern Donbas region. Kushner acknowledged that significant differences remained, and both Kyiv and Moscow said after Abu Dhabi that major differences persisted despite some progress.

Trump, who vowed when he returned to the White House to end the war, has yet to reach a deal on that front. The Abu Dhabi talks were the first direct negotiations of their kind since February, and the resumption of the trilateral format is itself a step — but the two sides left the Gulf without agreement on a ceasefire, on territory or on guarantees.

Zelenskyy said after the Dublin meeting that he hoped the next round's agenda would include efforts towards ceasefires and steps to defuse the conflict. Kushner said a lasting end to the fighting required credible security guarantees and "reciprocal" de-escalation commitments to reduce the risk of future conflict — the kind of guarantees that Putin's opposition to foreign troops makes difficult to construct.

What happens next

No date or location has been announced for the next round of talks, and as of Friday no European leader had publicly named a representative for the expanded format. The envoys said a new meeting had been set, but the details remain to be fixed — and the question of who speaks for Europe, and with what mandate, is now part of the negotiation itself.

For now, the process has two tracks that are moving: the prisoner exchange, which both sides describe as the largest of the war, and the widening of the table to include Europe. Whether the widened table brings a settlement closer, or simply gives the old disagreements a larger room, will be tested when the envoys return — and when Europe decides what it wants the new security arrangements to be. For the latest on the talks, follow our audio briefing on the envoys' Moscow trip.