Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow to meet Putin after Abu Dhabi talks stall
Trump's envoys landed in Moscow on Thursday for Ukraine talks with Putin after the Abu Dhabi round ended without a deal. What they want and where they go next.
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner landed in Moscow on Thursday, 12 November, to meet Vladimir Putin, a day after two days of US-run Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi ended without a breakthrough, CNN reported. The Abu Dhabi round itself, the first in nine months, began on Monday.
Putin’s special envoy Kirill Dmitriev met the two Americans on the runway at Vnukovo airport, in wet snow, and drove with them into central Moscow, Al Jazeera and the Moscow Times reported.
What do Witkoff and Kushner want from Putin?
Kushner said the trip is meant to finalise more humanitarian relief and more prisoner releases, according to Euronews. The bigger ask, Euronews reported, is Putin’s agreement to bring European countries into the negotiations. Ukraine has long wanted Europe at the main table. Moscow has so far refused.
Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin would first hear from the Russian team that went to Abu Dhabi, and only then from the US envoys, before deciding Moscow’s next steps, Al Jazeera reported. Lavrov also said Russia’s aims are still the ones it set when it launched its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Where are the talks stuck?
On land. Putin wants Ukraine to hand over all of the eastern Donbas region in return for peace, including parts Russian troops have not captured. Kyiv has flatly rejected that, CNN reported. Meanwhile Russia keeps hitting Ukraine’s power grid: the BBC reported this week on families without light, water or heat as winter starts.
What happens next?
After Moscow, the envoys are due to meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin on Friday, CNN and Euronews reported. Whether Putin agrees to any role for Europe will show up there first.
Why it matters to Pakistan
The war has kept wheat, fertiliser and fuel prices high around the world since 2022, and Pakistan imports all three. A ceasefire would not lower prices overnight, but it would take one big risk out of the markets that set what Pakistan pays.
