A meeting of representatives of Ukraine, the United States, NATO and Europe will take place in Brussels on 4 November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this at a briefing in Berlin.
The talks will cover recovery packages and security guarantees, and will be conducted at team level. On 10–11 November, the teams of Ukraine, the United States and Russia will meet in the UAE.
Zelenskyy hopes that this meeting will bring the sides closer to a trilateral leaders’ summit, as he believes only that format can end the war.
“This will be a format at the level of our teams. We expect that work in this format and our other diplomatic steps will open the way to a trilateral format at the level of leaders,” the President commented.
The American side has signalled that at the meeting with Ukraine and Russia it wants to discuss security guarantees and a recovery package.
“They are also discussing with our team the issues we want to raise at the 10–11 meeting in Abu Dhabi. For us, these are priority matters. In my view, for all normal people these should be priority matters: energy — that is, a ceasefire from both sides. And also critical infrastructure. Second is grain, which means unblocking the Black Sea. Not only Ukraine is interested in this. Russia is interested, in my view, as are other countries: Africa, Asia, various partners. The third aspect is people — in what format we can increase exchanges. Ideally, an all-for-all exchange, but in what format we can increase exchanges and make the return of people home more intensive,” he said.
Another topic is preparing a meeting of the leaders of the three countries, preferably with Europe’s participation. The issue of security guarantees concerns Europe.
Europe, in one format or another, is already present in the trilateral talks, including in the format of national security advisers.
- Ukraine, NATO, the United States and Europe had planned to meet in Brussels ahead of the trilateral talks. However, the meeting was postponed due to a change of plans on the American side.
- The talks between the teams of the three countries will be the first since February this year. The pause came amid the war in the Middle East.