European officials will turn up for the U.S.-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in the United Arab Emirates this week, France's foreign minister said Sunday, days after the Kremlin had insisted there could be no role for European powers at the meeting.
"France will be there and will ensure that Europe's voice is heard," Jean-Noël Barrot told French radio. He did not say who would represent Paris, or whether French or other European officials would take part directly in negotiations, or simply observe.
The meetings, which are set to take place in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday, had previously been presented as a three-way session between Washington, Moscow and Kyiv.
The Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov had earlier ruled out a European role, saying the trilateral format had already been agreed.
Talking to a Russian news channel on Friday, he accused European governments of failing to decide who speaks for them, while acknowledging that security talks would at some point require Europe's involvement.
On Thursday, President Trump met Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev and said a coming agreement was "going to involve more than Ukraine," adding he could even say it "might involve all of Europe."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN on Friday that he had not been given details of the agreement Trump had referenced, and warned: "For me, it's not simple, and it can be dangerous." He invoked the 1945 Yalta conference, where Allied leaders settled Europe's division without the involvement of several affected countries.
A stalled process restarts
This will be the fourth round of talks between the two warring nations brokered by the Trump administration, and the first since those in Geneva this February. Earlier U.S.-brokered meetings have made little progress, and the chances of a breakthrough have been reduced as the Trump administration focused on its war with Iran.
Moscow confirmed it would return to the negotiating table only following a visit by U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg in October. Those talks saw Putin announce the release of an American prisoner from a Russian jail — an apparent Kremlin gesture to President Trump's earlier lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel exports. Ukraine was vehemently opposed to the fuel sales — arguing they helped replenish Moscow's war chest.
Witkoff has said the agenda for these latest talks will include postwar security arrangements and de-escalation of the conflict and humanitarian issues, shortly after Melania Trump helped broker a limited ceasefire that allowed humanitarian aid to enter a town inside Russian-occupied Ukraine.
Russia's delegation will again be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline Putin aide who has participated in most talks with Ukraine since the unsuccessful first set of discussions all the way back in March 2022.
For the first time, these talks will also include Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, as well as Yury Zhigarlovsky, a deputy head of the General Staff's operations directorate, alongside military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.
This more senior lineup could indicate that Moscow is readier than before to address thorny political and military questions. But the U.S. think tank Institute for the Study of War suggested some of those same Russian officials have in fact previously sought to slow down previous talks or push harder on Moscow's demands.
The gaps between the two countries remain substantial. Russia has demanded that Ukraine give up large parts of its territory and renounce NATO membership. Zelenskyy has repeatedly insisted any security commitments should be clearly spelled out, including who would act, and how, if Russia attacked again.
Skepticism and shifting politics
Some analysts expect little. In an op-ed for the Atlantic Council think tank, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst argued that Putin had rejected every U.S. proposal Kyiv accepted and preferred participating in peace talks than pursuing actual peace. "Perhaps the only outcome of the talks," he wrote, "will be to agree to another round."
The meetings in the United Arab Emirates also follow Democrats' midterm victories, which Zelenskyy said could improve Ukraine's chances of more U.S. aid.
Russia, too, may be looking to push for the Trump administration's outlines of a Ukraine deal — before a Democratic-controlled Congress arrives come January.
Also hovering over the talks — the prospect of Trump, Xi, and Putin gathering for a trilateral meeting at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China later this month. While details remain murky, all sides have confirmed discussions are underway.
And as officials travel to Abu Dhabi to talk peace, the war has raged on regardless.
Zelenskyy said Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles at the Kyiv area overnight Saturday, with only four intercepted, accusing Moscow of treating diplomacy "as a form of aggression."
In southern Ukraine, the death toll from a guided-bomb strike Monday on an aid distribution site in Komyshuvakha rose to at least 55.
