Trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine, and the US are set to begin Tuesday and run through Wednesday, but there's already a serious disagreement brewing involving representation at the negotiating table.
On Monday European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in a post on X that the EU would have representatives at the talks, stating that "the EU will be present alongside our partners." Her full post is below...
But this has resulted in a nyet - a swift objection - from Moscow within hours of von der Leyen's statement.
Russia has instead instisted that the trilateral talks exclude officials from the European Union. "As for the presence of Europeans, you know that the Americans have their own channels of communication with the Europeans, as do the Ukrainians," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, rejecting that EU officials will have spots at the negotiating table.
American and Ukrainian negotiators are "in all likelihood constructing their own coordination mechanism" with European representatives, Peskov asserted.
This is also after "A European official told AFP that national security representatives from the EU, NATO, as well as France, Germany and the U.K. plan to be in the UAE capital during the negotiations."
The Kremlin is certainly also going to balk and some kind of direct NATO representation, and all of this could serve to derail the negotiations before they are even set to begin. Is this more EU sabotage of a US-backed peace process?
Ukrainian media has also highlighted Moscow's firm rejection of EU representation at the talks:
On 8 November, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Vesti’s Pavel Zarubin that Russia had held no talks with Europeans on a security agreement, unlike the Americans, and claimed Europe still could not choose a negotiator, according to Interfax.
A day later, Peskov told reporters that what will take place in Abu Dhabi “are trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine mediated by the United States,” and said Europeans were apparently building their own coordination with the Americans and Ukrainians, Interfax reported.
As for Ukraine's President Zelensky, he has stated on X, "We are doing everything to ensure the trilateral format delivers results."
Meanwhile, President Trump has said during a Sunday appearance on “60 minutes” that he's 'very close' to overseeing a peace deal in the nearly five-year long war.
“It was the hatred between Zelensky and Putin. If I had been president that war would’ve never started. Zero chance. But it did start. So I inherited that war. I believe we're very close to making a deal,” Trump explained.
When asked which side he 'trusts' more, Trump responded: "I’d rather not say, but I get along with both. I believe that that war is going to end, and it’s going to end soon. And the only reason it’s going to end is because of me. There is tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelensky." However, the US president echoed similar things in the opening days and weeks of his second term in office, but peace has remained elusive.