The special envoy of the United States, Steve Witkoff, pointed out this Thursday that Europe will be present in the next round of talks on Ukraine. This is a claim that both Kyiv and several European leaders have been defending in recent months, considering that the security of the continent after a possible peace agreement requires its direct participation.
"The Europeans will join the next meeting (...) They are our partners and it is important that they participate," Witkoff said in an interview granted to the Russian news portal Vesti, during his stop in Moscow, where he met with the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, after the talks held previously in the United Arab Emirates.
In that meeting, in which Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of the President of the United States, Donald Trump, was also present, Putin asked them to convey to European leaders the need to choose between peace or the extension of the war in Ukraine.
The Russian head of state has reiterated on different occasions that the sending of weapons to Ukraine and the imposition of sanctions against Russia are incompatible with the peace that European leaders are calling for. These, in turn, have defended their involvement in the negotiations by considering that they are the ones providing the most military support to Kyiv.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodimir Zelenski, during his speech at the IX Summit of the European Political Community, held in Dublin, has pointed out that the outcome of the war depends not only on ensuring that Ukrainian territory is not attacked again, but also on articulating a new security framework between Europe and Russia.
Zelenski has emphasized that "Putin's wars, in reality, respond only to his own attitude toward others, and not to a permanent confrontation with Europe," which since the disintegration of the Soviet Union "treated Russia well, fostering to the maximum the exchange of goods and the greatest possible cooperation."