Ushakov Says Europeans May Fly to Abu Dhabi, Not Sit at the Table

Yuri Ushakov has offered Europe a plane ticket and withheld a chair. In an interview published as the working week began, President Putin's foreign policy aide said European representatives might be in Abu Dhabi while Russia, Ukraine and the United States hold technical talks. They might be told things. They might be consulted. That, he said, would not make them parties to the negotiation. On Sunday the Kremlin's line was that the opening rounds had to be three-way. Monday's version is ruder, and more precise.

Ushakov's picture, given to the Russian paper Kommersant, is of diplomats who buy tickets, fly in, and wait to be updated by the Ukrainian delegation or even the American one. He allowed that views might be taken into account. He described the result as a more complicated process around the table, not a change in who sits at it. Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the same thing more flatly: the talks will be trilateral. At some later stage, he said, Europeans will be required. Nobody, he added, is yet talking about that stage in detail.

A phone that has not rung

Peskov also said Putin is open to speaking to European leaders, including President Emmanuel Macron and Chancellor Friedrich Merz, if they call the Kremlin, just as he is open to President Zelensky. "Of course he is open to dialogue with everyone," Peskov said. Then the operative sentence: nobody has called. The offer is easy to make and hard to use. A call is not a seat in Abu Dhabi. A seat in Abu Dhabi, on Moscow's current terms, is not on offer.

What Europe is arguing with itself about

The Financial Times has reported that the most likely European presence, if one is agreed, would be a joint face for France, Germany and Britain. Smaller member states are unlikely to treat that as representation. Ukraine has said there is not yet an agreed list. Tykhyi has been clear that Europe cannot be left out of guarantees, a ceasefire or rebuilding, and equally clear that this does not mean every capital joins the trilateral group. The E5 format is the current attempt to keep London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Warsaw on one page.

Finland's president, Alexander Stubb, has tried to hold two ideas at once after his own call with Putin. Finland, he said, is not a mediator. It supports Ukraine fully. It also thinks communication with Moscow is necessary. He contrasted that with the United States, which he described as a go-between, including over a diesel arrangement with Russia that he said would be unthinkable inside the EU. Moscow has linked fresh Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries, carried out against President Trump's wishes, to European encouragement. The briefing-room offer and the blame are being issued together.

What is actually supposed to be discussed

If teams do meet after 4 November, Ukraine wants limits on attacks against energy sites and shipping, prisoner exchanges, and humanitarian questions. Zelensky has said territory is for leaders, not for officials. Russia still wants concessions in the Donbas. Kyiv wants guarantees it can enforce, and it has refused to hand land over as the price of a meeting. None of that is scheduled until Washington says, after Tuesday's midterms, whether the dates hold. Iran is the other reason the diary is soft. Zelensky's case for a European role has not changed. Ushakov's answer on Monday is that Europe may hover, and may not vote.

For British ministers the insult is specific. London is in the E5. It is also, on this telling, a country whose officials might be updated in a corridor by the Americans. Ed Miliband has spent the autumn arguing that Europe should unlock frozen Russian assets rather than wait to be invited. That argument was about money. This one is about whether money, guarantees and a ceasefire can be settled by three delegations while the lenders wait outside. Ushakov has told them they can buy the ticket. He has not told them they can speak when the door shuts.