U.S. Envoys Ask Russia to Submit New Europe Security Proposal

Russian negotiators told U.S. mediators in Abu Dhabi this week that President Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine because then-President Joe Biden did not reply to a 2021 message on Moscow’s security concerns, Axios reported, citing two people familiar with the talks.

One of those people said Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff replied that the world had changed a great deal since 2021. They asked Russia to draft a new proposal covering its demands and the “symmetrical steps” it would take to ease tensions and reassure Europe it will not attack again.

The envoys are due to repeat that request when they meet Putin in Moscow on Thursday, before flying to Dublin to see Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky the same night.

Envoys Take Request to Moscow

The Abu Dhabi talks, mediated by Kushner, Witkoff and Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, were the first between Ukrainian and Russian officials with American mediators present since February, when contacts were suspended because of the war in Iran.

The sides agreed in principle on a prisoner exchange that Kushner and Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said could be the largest since the war began.

Europe’s Place at the Table

The envoys also told the Russian side that any serious discussion of European security would require European representatives at future peace talks.

“We told the Russians, they have their desires and fears, but they have to provide different de-escalation and different proposals as well, if they want Europe to be able to receive those proposals in a good way,” Kushner said on Wednesday.

Moscow has so far refused to let European governments join the talks with Ukraine. Vladimir Medinsky, the Putin adviser who led the Russian delegation, accused European leaders of “a collective deception of the Ukrainian people” and said he did not understand “what can be discussed with them.”

The 2021 Security Demands

Axios relayed the Russian characterization of a “2021 letter.” In December 2021, Russia delivered draft treaties to the United States and NATO demanding a halt to the alliance’s eastward expansion and limits on its forces in Eastern Europe. Washington and NATO sent written replies in January 2022 that rejected the core demand on enlargement.

The United States had dismissed such terms in the past, Axios reported, but now appears open to some form of a European security arrangement as part of a wider deal to end the war.

Security Talks on Two Tracks

Washington wants to negotiate that architecture and a Ukraine peace deal at the same time, though a source familiar with White House thinking said any security arrangement would take effect only after a deal to end the war. The United States, the source said, would not strike a deal unless Europe and Ukraine were on board, and would not grant Moscow a veto.