Ukraine and Russia have agreed to bring European countries into the next round of peace talks, the United States envoy Jared Kushner said, while Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Europe against deploying peacekeeping troops to Ukraine once a deal is reached. Kushner announced the development on X after meeting Putin in Moscow.
Kushner and the US envoy Steve Witkoff then flew to Ireland for a European summit, where they met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Kushner said the talks would address broader postwar European security alongside territorial questions, and said the United States saw a "big change" on the European side. Witkoff said Europeans would take part in the next meeting. The date and format of that round have not been specified.
Putin, however, showed no sign of softening Moscow's territorial demands. He called European troops a "continuation of war" and said Russia was open to dialogue with the European Union, blaming Europe for breaking off that contact. He urged the United States to press European governments to choose between peace and war. Zelenskyy, for his part, wants the agenda to include a ceasefire and concrete de-escalation steps, and he described US talk of a European security order involving Russia as "a bit strange". The gaps between Moscow and European capitals remain sharp, and the path to any agreement is still unclear.
Work is also under way on what would be the largest prisoner exchange of the war, a deal that could reunite thousands of people with their families. The reporting does not yet give a timetable or confirmed numbers for the swap, and it is not clear whether it will be linked to the wider negotiations.
A separate dispute has emerged over satellite communications. Restrictions have hit SpaceX's Starshield service, which Ukraine uses on the front line, and the disruption affected both frontline areas and Russian-controlled parts of Ukraine. The restrictions have left Ukrainian units without a service they relied on in active combat zones. SpaceX declined to comment, and the cause and scope of the restrictions remain unclear. Zelenskyy's remark about a European security order came against this backdrop of uncertainty over who controls the channels that connect the battlefield.
Violence continued across the region as the diplomatic effort went on. A Russian drone strike killed two people in the Sumy region of Ukraine. In Rivne, a drone hit an apartment building and injured five people. In Russia's Belgorod region, a drone attack killed one person and injured four. Kernel Holding, one of the region's large agricultural companies, has suspended all of its oilseed plants following Russian attacks, a step that puts pressure on the wider farm and export economy.
4
