The Kremlin has spent the last 48 hours trying to lock Europe out of the next round of talks on Ukraine. Yuri Ushakov, a foreign policy aide to Vladimir Putin, said representatives of European countries are not expected at the trilateral meeting planned for Abu Dhabi. "They can get there if they buy tickets," he said, "but no one is going to invite them to the negotiating table."
The meeting, between teams from the United States, Russia and Ukraine, is tentatively set for 6 to 10 November. Volodymyr Zelensky has said Kyiv will not refuse a trilateral format if Washington insists on it. He has also asked the question Moscow would rather not hear: how a future European security order can be written without Europeans in the room. That case, made before Ushakov's line, is here.
What Moscow is asking Europe to accept
Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War, writing on Friday, say the Kremlin is reviving a demand it made in December 2021: that NATO pull its presence in Europe back to the borders of 1997. On their reading, that would mean dismantling the alliance's enlargement since the late 1990s and rewriting the security map of the continent. Moscow, they argue, will tolerate Europeans at a table only if that demand is the price of a chair.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said on Thursday that the trilateral format does not include the European Union, and that Moscow does not see the EU's position as aimed at peace. Maria Zakharova, at the foreign ministry, accused European leaders of refusing to discuss what she called Russian interests, and of making unrealistic demands. The European Commission answered on Thursday through its chief spokesperson, Paula Pinho. The Commission is still taking part in diplomatic efforts, she said. On the next meetings, "at this time we have no further information to share. But that could change at any moment."
The Abu Dhabi Talks, as of Friday
- Window: 6 to 10 November, in the United Arab Emirates, in a US, Russian and Ukrainian format.
- Ushakov: European officials will not be invited to the table.
- Zelensky: Europe should be involved, including on European security. Kyiv will still attend if the US wants three parties only.
- Finnish president Alexander Stubb has said Europeans would be involved. Moscow says they will not.
- ISW: the Kremlin is pressing a December 2021 demand to roll NATO back to its 1997 footprint.
Why the Nordic phone call matters
The argument broke into the open after a 90-minute call on Tuesday between Putin, Finland's president Alexander Stubb and Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Store. Ushakov said European participation in Abu Dhabi was not discussed. Stubb told the Nordic Council in Helsinki that European countries would be involved in November's talks. Both versions cannot be the briefing note. One of them is the position, and the other is the pressure.
The Institute for the Study of War reads Putin's contacts with Helsinki and Oslo as an attempt to sow mistrust among European capitals: a conversation with two neighbours, a public claim that the rest of the continent is unwelcome, and a demand that belongs to the months before the full-scale invasion. Zelensky, at a press conference in the Netherlands on Wednesday, said European Commission officials had recently joined consultations on ending the war for the first time, including meetings in Miami and Oslo. He also left with a Dutch pledge of an extra 500 million euros in military support this winter, for drones and other material.
The money question sitting behind the guest list
A seat at Abu Dhabi is only half of Europe's problem. The other half is how Ukraine is paid for in 2027 if the talks produce a pause, or if they produce nothing. Most of the frozen Russian central-bank assets sit at Euroclear in Belgium. Brussels has immobilised them indefinitely, so a single member state can no longer unfreeze them on a six-month veto. Belgium still resists using the principal, because the legal and financial risk is concentrated in Brussels. Britain has already told the EU to unlock the wider stock of assets. The 2027 gap is the sum that makes the argument urgent.
For London, the practical point is narrow. Andy Burnham's government is not in the room the Kremlin is describing, and neither is the European Commission, on Moscow's current wording. Zelensky wants both styles of ally present when security guarantees are written. The week of 6 November will show whether Washington treats that as a condition or as a request it can park. Until then, Europe's role is the argument, and the argument is being held in public, which is where Ushakov seems to want it.