Coming days may be ‘pivotal’ for talks to end Ukraine war, EU’s top diplomat says

The diplomatic effort to end the war in Ukraine could be entering a “pivotal week”, the EU’s foreign policy chief has said, as Donald Trump’s special envoy prepared to meet Vladimir Putin after talks at the weekend with Ukraine.

Steve Witkoff, the property developer turned envoy recently exposed for coaching Russian officials on how to win Trump’s favour, will hold talks with Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, the Kremlin announced.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, meanwhile, embarked on a diplomatic push to rally support from Ukraine’s European allies. He met the French president, Emmanuel Macron, in Paris on Monday morning to discuss “the conditions of a just and durable peace”, the Élysée Palace said.

The Ukrainian leader is expected to make his first official visit to Ireland on Tuesday, while his defence minister, Denys Shmyhal, was in Brussels on Monday for talks with his EU counterparts.

The EU’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said “it could be a pivotal week for diplomacy”, while stressing it was “clear that Russia does not want peace”. She said weekend talks held in Florida between the US and Ukraine had been “difficult but productive”, but voiced frustration that Europeans were not represented. Asked whether she trusted the US to find a good solution for Ukraine, she said: “Ukrainians are there alone. If they would be together with the Europeans, they would definitely be much stronger but I trust that Ukrainians stand up for themselves.”

Writing on X, Zelenskyy said the talks in the US had been “very constructive” and that there were “some tough issues that still have to be worked through”.

European leaders were alarmed by a US plan, heavily tilted in Russia’s favour, that emerged last month to end the war. It included granting Moscow territories in eastern Ukraine it did not yet control, while forcing Kyiv to cap the size of its army and abandon its ambition to join Nato. While that plan has been scaled back, Witkoff’s visit to Moscow – for his sixth face-to-face meeting with Putin – is likely to heighten anxiety in Kyiv and across European capitals, where the US envoy is widely perceived as being sympathetic to the Kremlin.

Witkoff is expected to fly to Russia on Monday with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to continue peace talks aimed at ending Moscow’s war in Ukraine. Putin’s spokesperson did not specify whether Kushner, who played an active role in negotiations over the Gaza peace deal, would also attend the meeting.

The two trusted Trump envoys participated in the weekend talks between senior Ukrainian and US officials that took place in Florida at a private golf club developed by Witkoff’s company.

After the meeting, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, expressed optimism for an end to the war. “There’s more work to be done. This is delicate,” Rubio said. “There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there’s another party involved here ... that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week, when Mr Witkoff travels to Moscow.”

Ukraine’s president is under pressure after the sudden resignation of his head of cabinet and closest adviser, Andriy Yermak, in response to a widening anti-corruption investigation that has become the most serious scandal of Zelenskyy’s presidency.