American envoys will travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet President Vladimir Putin after two days of US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi between Ukrainian and Russian negotiators on their almost five-year war.
After visiting Moscow, Jared Kushner and fellow envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Dublin, which hosts European summits this week, to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Kushner said on Wednesday that the meeting with Putin would "go over what was discussed today and try to make more progress on some of the issues that we discussed because we see some openings".
With Zelenskyy, the pair will "further explore some of the ideas that we came up with here today," he told reporters after two days of talks.
The countries agreed to a major prisoner exchange, the "biggest" ever, according to Kushner, though no side gave any figures.
But the two sides remain split over the role Europe should play in future talks.
Though little else of substance emerged from the talks in Abu Dhabi, the first since February, when the US war in Iran halted diplomacy, all sides talked up progress at the meeting and said talks would continue.
‘Good momentum’
Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said he saw "good momentum" after the discussions, but there were "issues that we cannot disclose at the moment".
Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinsky told reporters the "discussion will certainly continue".
But he questioned including Europe in the talks.
"We don't really understand what there is to talk about with them. We have not received a single peace initiative, not one concrete proposal from the European countries," he said after the talks.
Ukraine wants more involvement from its key European backers.
Kushner said looking at "if we can get the Europeans added to the format" would be on the agenda for talks with Putin.
Officials from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, as well as NATO and the EU, travelled to Abu Dhabi for meetings on the sidelines.
