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The Kremlin has said Europe must choose a leader to negotiate with Russia and meet President Vladimir Putin’s approval before Moscow gives the continent a seat at peace talks over Ukraine.
Dmitry Peskov, the Russian president’s spokesperson, told reporters on Friday that Putin wanted to assess the Europeans’ “real intentions” and did not commit to expanding the US-led negotiations.
Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said a day earlier that Putin was willing to give European involvement “a try” after meeting him in Moscow.
Peskov said Russia had yet to make a decision about whether it would let the Europeans, who provide almost all of Ukraine’s military and budget financing, take part.
“If the Europeans have someone who is authorised to speak [on their behalf], and if they have the desire to speak, then we will,” Peskov said, according to Interfax. “After we understand their real intentions and readiness to help the peace process, then we can take a decision about holding dialogue on the Ukraine peace process in an expanded format,” he added.
Instead, EU leaders who met in Dublin on Friday agreed on seven officials from France, Germany, Italy, Poland and the UK, plus the EU and Nato, to speak on behalf of the continent in what they believe to be technical talks for the foreseeable future, according to two officials briefed on the discussions.
A similar delegation — minus Poland — was present in Abu Dhabi earlier this week, though Russia refused to meet them. Kushner and the Ukrainian delegation debriefed the European envoys about their talks with the Russians.
“Our European team will continue to act in close co-ordination, in full unity,” said António Costa, European Council President, after announcing the decision. “Europe must speak with one clear and united voice . . . This is ultimately a team effort.”
Costa said the “weeks ahead will be a decisive test of Russia’s readiness to bring this war to an end”.
Russia also wants to discuss a “new long-term security architecture” in Europe as part of its conditions for ending the war, which would bar Nato from adding new members or deploying forces east of the former Iron Curtain. That is a red line for European capitals, which have insisted that such talks could only take place after peace is agreed in Ukraine.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, said on Thursday that Russia also wanted to discuss “a few fresh ideas building on the lessons we cannot help but take from the current situation, when the collective west has taken up arms against us and is not hiding its interests in using the Kyiv regime to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia”.
Putin told Kushner and Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday that dialogue with Europe over Ukraine was a “vicious circle” and accused Kyiv’s allies of trying to prolong the war.
The Russian president held a call with Finland’s Alexander Stubb and Norway’s Jonas Gahr Støre last month, and has said he is open to speaking to other foreign leaders.
But Putin has previously indicated he does not want to speak to European leaders unless they are prepared to take his maximalist demands for ending the war as a starting point for talks.
Maria Zakharova, Russia’s foreign ministry spokesperson, said Putin had not discussed the issue with Witkoff and Kushner.
Kaja Kallas, the EU’s top diplomat, said on Friday that she was de facto the person whom EU states had empowered to represent them in negotiations with foreign powers, but Putin did not want to talk to her because she was too “strong”.
“All the [EU] member states actually agreed that I’m the one who is representing Europe in foreign and security policies,” the former Estonian prime minister told reporters. “I know that the Russians don’t want me . . . They don’t want anybody strong on the other side, because they want to push through their maximum demands.”
Peskov declined to comment on Kallas representing Europe. Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chair of Russia’s security council, claimed “nobody invited the Europeans to the Ukraine negotiations” and said Kallas was “stupid”.
Many EU capitals remain wary of engaging with Russia without a signal that Putin is serious about any effort to end the conflict.
“A substantial peace agreement is as important as who represents Europe,” said Micheál Martin, Ireland’s taoiseach, on Friday.
Source: www.ft.com
