{"id":605382,"date":"2025-12-01T14:03:13","date_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:03:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/605382\/"},"modified":"2025-12-01T14:03:13","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T14:03:13","slug":"coming-days-may-be-pivotal-for-talks-to-end-ukraine-war-eus-top-diplomat-says-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/605382\/","title":{"rendered":"Coming days may be \u2018pivotal\u2019 for talks to end Ukraine war, EU\u2019s top diplomat says | Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"

The diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine could be entering a \u201cpivotal week\u201d, the EU\u2019s foreign policy chief has said, as Donald Trump\u2019s special envoy prepared to meet Vladimir Putin<\/a> after talks at the weekend with Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Steve Witkoff<\/a>, the property developer turned envoy recently exposed for coaching Russian officials on how to win Trump\u2019s favour<\/a>, will hold talks with Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, the Kremlin announced.<\/p>\n

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, embarked on a diplomatic push to rally support from Ukraine\u2019s European allies. He met the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on Monday morning to discuss \u201cthe conditions of a just and durable peace\u201d, the \u00c9lys\u00e9e Palace said.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian leader is expected to make his first official visit to Ireland on Tuesday, while his defence minister, Denys Shmyhal, was in Brussels on Monday for talks with his EU counterparts.<\/p>\n

The EU\u2019s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said \u201cit could be a pivotal week for diplomacy\u201d, while stressing it was \u201cclear that Russia does not want peace\u201d. She said weekend talks<\/a> held in Florida between the US and Ukraine had been \u201cdifficult but productive\u201d, but voiced frustration that Europeans were not represented. Asked whether she trusted the US to find a good solution for Ukraine, she said: \u201cUkrainians are there alone. If they would be together with the Europeans, they would definitely be much stronger but I trust that Ukrainians stand up for themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writing on X, Zelenskyy said the talks in the US had been \u201cvery constructive\u201d and that there were \u201csome tough issues that still have to be worked through\u201d.<\/p>\n

European leaders were alarmed by a US plan, heavily tilted in Russia\u2019s favour, that emerged last month to end the war. It included granting Moscow territories in eastern Ukraine<\/a> it did not yet control, while forcing Kyiv to cap the size of its army and abandon its ambition to join Nato. While that plan has been scaled back, Witkoff\u2019s visit to Moscow \u2013 for his sixth face-to-face meeting with Putin \u2013 is likely to heighten anxiety in Kyiv and across European capitals, where the US envoy is widely perceived as being sympathetic to the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

\"Ukraine:Ukraine: are we closer to a peace deal? \u2013\u00a0video explainer<\/p>\n

Witkoff is expected to fly to Russia on Monday with Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner<\/a>, to continue peace talks aimed at ending Moscow\u2019s war in Ukraine. Putin\u2019s spokesperson did not specify whether Kushner, who played an active role in negotiations over the Gaza peace deal, would also attend the meeting.<\/p>\n

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The two trusted Trump envoys participated in the weekend talks between senior Ukrainian and US officials that took place in Florida at a private golf club developed by Witkoff\u2019s company.<\/p>\n

After the meeting, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, expressed optimism for an end to the war. \u201cThere\u2019s more work to be done. This is delicate,\u201d Rubio said. \u201cThere are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there\u2019s another party involved here … that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week, when Mr Witkoff travels to Moscow.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ukraine\u2019s president is under pressure after the sudden resignation of his head of cabinet and closest adviser, Andriy Yermak<\/a>, in response to a widening anti-corruption investigation that has become the most serious scandal of Zelenskyy\u2019s presidency.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine could be entering a \u201cpivotal week\u201d, the EU\u2019s foreign…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":605383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-605382","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115644689040776408","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=605382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/605382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/605383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=605382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=605382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=605382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}