Kremlin Pours Cold Water On Europe Joining Talks Amid Kushner-Witkoff Visit
This is not what the Trump administration wanted to see after this week's Abu Dhabi trilateral talks, and as the team of Kushner-Witkoff, Trump's special envoys, are in Moscow where they met with President Vladimir Putin.
Putin's aide and representative to the talks, Yuri Ushakov, batted down Western efforts to get the Europeans at the table. He said that the Europeans need to decide between "peace" or "war" - in reference to Europe's drive to keep up maximum military support to Kyiv even as the US shows signs of backing off the intensity of assistance.
EuroNews writes, "Moscow has long equated Europe to a warring party due to the provision of weapons and ammunition that allies have sent to Kyiv."
"So far, all their practical actions point precisely to the latter," Ushakov said.
EuroNews also concluded, "After Steve Witkoff raised hopes that Europeans and Russians would soon sit at the same time, Moscow minimized the prospect and said Europe should cease military support for Ukraine."
Witkoff and Kushner while in Moscow reporteldy sought Putin's consent for Europeans to join what would be a multilateral format.
"The Europeans will join at the next meeting, which we consider to be a very important moment because they are our partners and it's important to us that they take part," Witkoff told reporters.
Kushner's take was that the talks were "very fulsome and detailed" on all the topics and expressed the Western desire that all of this would "hopefully" feed into a multilateral format.
Still, Putin aide lauded Trump administration efforts, per an official readout:
During today’s meeting with US special presidential envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Russian President Vladimir Putin, praised US leader Donald Trump’s personal attention to the issue of settling the conflict around Ukraine, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov told reporters.
Putin did not overlook the fact that the current US administration is working very persistently and tenaciously to achieve a truly long-term settlement to the Ukrainian conflict.
"It was noted that President Donald Trump is personally focused on resolving this issue," Ushakov emphasized.
For Russia, a "longterm settlement" means nothing less than full political recognition over the four eastern terrirtories and of course Crimea.
Zelensky has consistently rejected the prospected of a major land swap. He's lobbied the EU and NATO to keep up Kiev's maximal demands.
Moscow seems content with drawing out the process for as long is it takes, per another TASS readout:
US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner may visit Moscow within the next two weeks, a source told TASS.
"There is indeed such a possibility. The details will be agreed upon," the source said, commenting on the possibility of a visit within the next couple of weeks.
The presidents of Russia and the United States held a phone call on October 9, discussing Russian diesel supplies. Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak told TASS that Moscow would immediately begin lifting restrictions on diesel exports ahead of schedule.
Pro-Ukraine pundits not happy at these developments...
And so it remains clear that the Russian approach is to ultimately see things settled on the ground and in the battlefield regarding the 'special military operation' - despite immense troop losses on both sides.