"What there is to discuss": the envoys carry Europe's chair from Abu Dhabi to Moscow

Explosions were heard in Kyiv in the early hours of Thursday, a Reuters witness said, and Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said five drones heading for the Russian capital were shot down¹. It was the morning after the first direct Russia–Ukraine talks in nine months ended in Abu Dhabi with a prisoner exchange agreed in principle and the numbers still to be set on Thursday^1,3.

The next stop is a question of seating. US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet Vladimir Putin, and are expected to raise adding European partners to the talks; Kushner has said they must be at the table, Reuters reports¹. Representatives of France, the UK, Germany and Italy were already present in Abu Dhabi, according to ABC News². Volodymyr Zelenskiy put it plainly: “We believe that Europe must be represented at every stage of real diplomacy”².

Moscow’s chief negotiator, Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, was dismissive. “We have not received a single peace initiative or a single concrete peace proposal from European countries, so it is unclear what there is to discuss,” he told reporters². He also said: “In some areas we found common ground, while in others we did not”².

Take Medinsky’s line at its word and it is a to-do list, not a veto. If the objection is that Europe has no written proposal, the remedy is a written proposal: security guarantees, reconstruction finance, sanctions sequencing. Those are exactly the things Europe pays for and so has to sign. After Moscow the envoys fly to Ireland to see Zelenskiy, who is attending a meeting of European leaders there¹.

For you, the useful signal this week is small and countable: a prisoner exchange with a number attached, and a date. Wars rarely end with a speech. They end with lists.