RUSSIA-UKRAINE PEACE TALKS: Kushner Pushes Europe-Inclusive Deal, Seeks New Multilateral Format

One of the goals of the meeting to Moscow, in addition to trying to finalize the humanitarian relief and the release of prisoners and other humanitarian issues that we're working on together, is going to be to try and see if we can get the Europeans added to the format so we can make this a multilateral format. We also discussed the hard issues, no issues weren't discussed that are open, the territorial issues which will be the hardest, but we do believe that As we discuss these other issues, we'll find a pathway to settle them all at the same time. I think that having these discussions is very important, but the implementation of post-war security will not occur until there's an agreement on territory and on all other bilateral issues. The engagement with Europe, at least I know with the Ukrainian and with the American side, has been quite strong. We relayed to President Putin directly several times and to his team that the only way to get this done is to have them by our side, and I think that they're receptive to it, and I believe that hopefully tomorrow in Moscow Steve and I will be successful and President Putin will give the blessing for that to occur. And I think that if he agrees to that, then I think that we'll be able to make a lot more progress on the issues that matter. Like, I'm in this process since 2022, you know, like, I can fairly say that this was one of the toughest ones. And I think that Russians came with very, very strict directives, and it was very hard to actually soften the discussion. And I think that the way that you structured it through post-war picture for both countries, I think that opened up a dialogue, and we started to work more productively. Secondly, I think that the most important part is people. You know, we definitely work hard to stop the war for each person in Ukraine. And, uh... But, you know, like before the war stops, there is always like people who feel worse, you know, people who are in prison. So exchanging such a big number, it's a big achievement. So I think it'd be great if they did that at any time. I think that that would be a good thing. But I think that what... What, again, just to be transparent, I think what the Russians have said is they'd like to see more progress made before that happens. I think that clearly there's not, you know, great trust or love between the leaders. So I think that if we can find a pathway to arrange, and I will say this too, you know, these deals do take time. These are hard deals. So we just concluded the second day of discussions. These very substantive. They were some pretty tough discussions after I think almost eight months of not being together, but were you Obviously, there's a lot of very serious issues that are being discussed, but the conversations were very thorough. very We covered all the relevant issues, and we were able to do a good exchange of ideas. Some areas we see places where we can find compromises. much. Others, we need to have more discussions, but I think this was a good first step. One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalize the numbers tomorrow. Steve and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin to 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 and some opportunities there. After that, we're going to fly to Dublin, and we're going to be with President Zelensky to debrief with him and further explore some of the ideas that we Bye-bye. One of the goals of the meeting to Moscow, in addition to trying to finalize the humanitarian relief and the release of prisoners and other humanitarian issues that we're working on together, is going to be to try and see if we can get the Europeans added to the format so we can make this a multilateral format. We also discussed the hard issues, no issues weren't discussed that are open, the territorial issues which will be the hardest, but we do believe that As we discuss these other issues, we'll find a pathway to settle them all at the same time. I think that having these discussions is very important, but the implementation of post-war security will not occur until there's an agreement on territory and on all other bilateral issues. The engagement with Europe, at least I know with the Ukrainian and with the American side, has been quite strong. We relayed to President Putin directly several times and to his team that the only way to get this done is to have them by our side. And I think that they're receptive to it. And I believe that hopefully tomorrow in Moscow, Steve and I will be successful. And President Putin will give the blessing for that to occur. And I think that if he agrees to that, then I think that we'll be able to make a lot more progress on the issues that matter. Like, I'm in this process since 2012, you know, like, I can fairly say that this was one of the toughest ones. And I think that Russians came with very, very strict directives, and it was very hard to actually soften the discussion. And I think that the way that you structured it through post-war picture for both countries, I think that opened up a dialogue, and we started to work more productively. Secondly, I think that the most important part is people, you know, we definitely work hard to stop the war for each person in Ukraine. And, but, you know, like, before the war stops, there is always like people who feel worse, you know, people who are in prison. So exchanging such a big number, it's a big achievement. So I think it'd be great if they did that at any time. I think that that would be a good thing. But I think that what... What, again, just to be transparent, I think what the Russians have said is they'd like to see more progress made before that happens. I think that clearly there's not, you know, great trust or love between the leaders. So I think that if we can find a pathway to arrange, and I will say this too, you know, these deals do take time. These are hard deals. Thank So we just concluded the second day of discussions. These were very substantive. They were some pretty tough discussions after, I think, almost eight months of not being together. We're going to continue this together. But Obviously, there's a lot of very serious issues that are being discussed, but the conversations were very thorough. you. We covered all the relevant issues, and we were able to do a good exchange of ideas. Some areas we see places where we can find compromises. Others, we need to have more discussions, but I think this was a good first step. One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalize the numbers tomorrow. Steve and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin to 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 and some opportunities there. After that, we're going to fly to Dublin and we're going to be with President Zelensky to debrief with him came up with here today.