Jared Kushner left Abu Dhabi with a prisoner swap deal, and now he’s heading to Putin to ask about bringing Europe into the talks

Russia and Ukraine have agreed to a large-scale prisoner swap after two days of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi, the first time the two countries have negotiated in nine months, as reported by The Hill. Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s top envoys for peace missions, led the talks and are now heading to Moscow to meet with President Vladimir Putin. Kushner said one of the main goals of the visit is to see whether European nations can be included in the negotiation format.

After Moscow, the two envoys plan to travel to Dublin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Negotiators from both sides are returning to their capitals to work out the final details of the exchange.

Rustem Umerov, who leads Ukraine’s delegation, said on X, “There are opportunities to continue the negotiation process,” but noted that a great deal of difficult work remains. Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation, also confirmed the swap and told Russian state TV that the future security architecture of Europe was a central point in the talks.

Bringing Europe in is the next big ask

Before the talks, Kushner and Witkoff met with representatives from the European Union, NATO, the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany, and France. Kushner described those meetings as substantive and tough. “Some areas we see places where we can find compromises, others we need to have more discussions, but I think this was a good first step,” he said.

The US team is pushing for a deal that lays out a post-war scenario for both countries, including security guarantees for Ukraine and a broader security architecture for Europe that takes Russian concerns into account. The team argues that confidence in a post-war security setup could eventually make decisions on territorial concessions possible. The envoys have floated other ideas as well, including a plan to unfreeze Russian assets that European leaders pushed back on.

Kushner acknowledged that some issues will be harder than others. “We also discussed the hard issues… the territorial issues, which will be the hardest. But we do believe that as we discuss these other issues, we’ll find a pathway to settle them all at the same time,” he said. Those questions remain open, and Zelensky said after an earlier meeting with the envoys that the war will continue into winter.

The focus on European security architecture has drawn pushback from European officials. Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top foreign policy official, addressed the issue after a recent G7 meeting. “We have a European security architecture in place. I’ve counted at least 30 international agreements where Russia has undertaken obligations, to respect sovereignty and territorial integrity… our problem is, is that Russia is not keeping to those agreements,” she said.

Kallas also argued that Russia is the only party breaching that architecture. She said any future talks must include clear concessions from Russia to prevent further attacks.