EU leaders are preparing for possible negotiations with Russia
8 May 13:18
European Union leaders are preparing for potential negotiations with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, European Council President António Costa said in a speech at the European University Institute in Florence. His remarks were reported by the British newspaper The Financial Times in an article, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
“I am holding talks with the leaders of the 27 member states to determine how we can best organize ourselves and exactly what we need to discuss with Russia when the time is right,” Costa said.
According to him, “there is potential” for negotiations with Putin, but so far “no one has seen” any signs that Russia is ready for “effective” participation in “serious” discussions. Costa also noted that the EU does not intend to interfere with the negotiations being led by the U.S.
Speaking about preparations for a potential dialogue with Russia, Coasta recalled that at the EU summit in Cyprus in late April, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called on EU representatives to “be ready to make a positive contribution to the negotiations.” A senior Ukrainian official confirmed this: “We need closer coordination at the European level.” According to him, the EU could participate in the negotiations as a “leader” speaking on behalf of “all Europeans.”
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The last contact between Russia and the EU was in February 2026
The last serious dialogue between Europe and Russia took place in early February 2026, when French presidential advisers Emmanuel Bonne and Bertrand Buchwalter visited Moscow to discuss the EU’s possible participation in peace talks to end the war in Ukraine.
At the time, it was reported that the Kremlin had rejected the French proposals.
“Putin’s general message to everyone is this: we are ready for constructive dialogue if you are too. But if not, then we are not interested,” the FT quotes a source who spoke with the Russian president as saying.
Additionally, in mid-March, the FT reported, citing sources, that Putin’s aide Yuri Ushakov used profanity in a conversation with French representatives while rejecting their proposal for negotiations. In a comment for this article, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov stated that the French “did not bring any positive signals,” and therefore they “really had nothing positive to hear in response.”
Negotiations between the U.S. and Ukraine to resume after a pause
In the coming days, U.S. Special Envoy Stephen Witkoff will meet with Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, in Miami. These talks will be the first between representatives of the two countries since February 28, when the U.S. and Israel launched a war against Iran.
Due to the new military conflict, Witkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who had previously been involved in peace talks regarding Ukraine, shifted their focus to negotiations with Tehran. In addition, the overall escalation of the situation in the Middle East, where a trilateral meeting between representatives of Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine was originally planned, has also led to the suspension of negotiations.
At the same time, according to Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the President and a member of the Ukrainian negotiating delegation, Moscow and Kyiv are moving closer to a peace agreement, and resolving the war may not take long. In early April, he noted that although both Ukraine and Russia had so far maintained “maximalist” positions in the negotiations, the parties would move closer together in their search for a compromise.
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