Two-hour Kremlin meeting precedes US envoys' Dublin session with Zelenskyy

Abu Dhabi sessions yield a planned prisoner swap but no peace breakthrough

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who is also President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin for about two hours Thursday, then left for Dublin for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as Washington pushed for new momentum in its efforts to end the war.

The meetings capped a week of U.S.-brokered diplomacy. Kushner and Witkoff brokered two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, between delegations from Moscow and Kyiv — the first direct discussions between Ukrainian and Russian representatives in nine months as the push for a settlement stalled. The sessions ended Wednesday with an agreement to swap a large number of prisoners, though the exact figure has yet to be announced, and produced no other major breakthrough. The Russian and Ukrainian delegations “agreed on many of the principles, but are still apart on some of the ways to accomplish” peace, Kushner said in Moscow.

Kushner said one goal of the Kremlin meeting was to win Putin’s blessing for European representatives to join the talks, which are examining the continent’s broader security arrangements. The United States and Zelenskyy want Europe to appoint a single person to negotiate with Moscow. Russia opposes any European role in the direct negotiations, complaining that European governments finance and supply Ukraine’s military effort. European capitals, for their part, are concerned about Russia’s conduct and broader intentions on the continent.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov argued that Europe must first name a representative before it can join the peace talks. “The Europeans squabble like spiders in a jar. If someone takes the initiative to establish contact with the Russian side, such people are facing ostracism,” Peskov said.

Washington and European capitals have sometimes seemed at odds in their diplomatic efforts. Trump has repeatedly sided with Putin, according to the AP’s reporting — last month the U.S. president waived sanctions and struck a deal to import Russian diesel, moves that dismayed Ukraine and European leaders. Some analysts say negotiators may be looking to grant Russia concessions on NATO’s strategy in return for peace in Ukraine, a possibility that has alarmed European leaders. Many in Europe also see Moscow’s inclusion in discussions about postwar European security as an unwelcome concession to Putin, who has described NATO’s eastward expansion as a main security threat to Russia and has demanded the alliance pull its troops back from Russia’s borders.

Putin reaffirmed to the envoys that any European troops sent to Ukraine after a ceasefire would be “absolutely unacceptable” and that Russia would regard such a deployment as a security threat and legitimate targets. “In other words, the war would resume immediately,” Putin said. He also said Russia regards the border with Ukraine to be sealed by a prospective peace deal as now extending to cover the four Ukrainian regions Moscow annexed in 2022 but has never fully controlled.

Zelenskyy is in Dublin for a gathering of more than 40 European countries that includes NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Rutte said the United States, Europe and Ukraine are “very much aligned” on what security guarantees should look like, following a meeting in Paris in January. “But now of course we need the peace deal, or at least a ceasefire,” Rutte said.

Zelenskyy said political changes could open “a window of opportunity” for a peace deal, pointing to Democrats taking over the U.S. Congress in January following midterm elections and to balloting in France next year. “The political landscape in Europe could change in 2027. … We also see changes already taking place in the United States,” Zelenskyy said in Dublin late Wednesday. He called the proposed prisoner exchange a positive step but insisted Ukraine will not surrender Russian-occupied territory in return for peace. Russia and Ukraine have swapped prisoners occasionally, but both sides remain far apart on their terms for accepting a settlement.

The diplomacy is proceeding while fighting continues along the 1,200-kilometer (about 750-mile) front line. Russia’s larger army has been held back by Ukrainian resistance, while Moscow’s missile and drone strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities have disrupted heat, electricity and water supplies to Ukrainian cities, sapping public morale in what Kyiv calls a “weaponization of winter.” Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses downed 71 Ukrainian drones overnight and that its forces struck a drone-manufacturing plant in Kyiv and three other facilities producing missile fuel and drone components around the capital. Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched missiles and 123 drones overnight, 73 of them jet-powered, with hits recorded at 17 locations.

Zelenskyy said Thursday on social media that Ukraine is experiencing another slowdown in the U.S. Starshield system — SpaceX’s military-grade version of the Starlink satellite internet service — that the country needs to defend itself against Russian attacks. Military units have recorded “significant disruptions,” including speed restrictions limiting Ukrainian drones to 161 kph (100 mph), Zelenskyy said, adding that a military investigation established the restrictions were not random errors. Ukraine uses Starlink and Starshield to intercept Russian drones and launch its own strikes.

Last month, limits on Ukrainian drone speeds severely disrupted operations and alarmed Kyiv officials who fear U.S. support could drop off. Elon Musk acknowledged that SpaceX had throttled the Starlink service in Ukraine for about a week, saying the system could not be used for offensive strikes against Russia. Zelenskyy said in Dublin that the current speed limits cover operations in Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine and that Kyiv is trying to find out from U.S. officials what is going on. “If someone in America is making decisions that basically treat Ukrainian territory as if it is not Ukrainian, then this tells us where things are going,” he said.

In Russia, a serviceman was killed early Thursday when his vehicle exploded in St. Petersburg, according to the country’s Investigative Committee, its main criminal investigation agency, which did not identify the victim or say who was behind the bombing. The Fontanka news outlet reported the victim was a colonel and that a bomb in his car exploded as he drove off. Several senior Russian military officers have been killed in bombings and other attacks that Moscow blames on Ukraine, and Kyiv has claimed responsibility for some attacks on Russian soil.

Susie Blann and Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine, Jill Lawless in Dublin, Lorne Cook in Brussels and Barry Hatton in Lisbon, Portugal, contributed.