US, Ukraine say Europe to join peace talks as Putin sticks to hardline stance

It's been a packed two days of diplomacy across three countries, but still no major breakthrough in ending the war between Russia and Ukraine. US Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner did manage to get an agreement from Russia's President Putin to allow the Europeans to join in the next round of talks, which is welcomed by Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This is important that Europeans next time, next meeting, Europe will be during negotiation, will be a negotiating team in not some way, not separately, they will have a voice. This is important for us because the war is in Europe, we will be a member of the EU in the future and that's why it's very important for prosperity and for security guarantees, it's very important to have Europe. The Russian leader would not back down on his demands, particularly when it comes to territory that Moscow illegally annexed. The Kremlin has also reiterated their red line of NATO expansion and weapons near Russia's borders. Such statements will ring alarm bells among European and NATO leaders, who fear more Russian aggression and a watering down of their own security guarantees. While complex negotiations will continue, Jared Kushner pushed on their other recent success of securing the largest prisoner swap since the war began. We're going to finalize on the prisoner of war exchange, which is a very important thing. Obviously, the human, a lot of people are being impacted by this war. To return these thousands of people to their families, I think, will be a very nice milestone to achieve. Volodymyr Zelensky added they would start working on an agenda looking at de-escalation and certain ceasefires.