President Donald J. Trump’s special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met with Ukraine’s leader, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, near Dublin on Thursday evening. The meeting came hours after their talks with Russia’s leader, President Vladimir Putin, at the Kremlin. Afterward, Mr. Zelenskyy said the next Russia-Ukraine prisoner exchange would be the largest of the war.
“It will be the biggest, Steve and Jared told me, the biggest exchange of war prisoners yet,” Mr. Zelenskyy told reporters at a joint briefing with the two envoys, the Kyiv Independent reported.
The meeting took place at Casement Aerodrome, a military air base in Baldonnel, west of Dublin. Mr. Zelenskyy was there for the European Political Community summit. Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s lead negotiator, also took part.
Mr. Kushner called the meeting “a very good discussion.” He described the envoys’ talks with Mr. Putin earlier in the day as “very detailed and productive.” He said the Russian leader had agreed to let European representatives join the talks. Mr. Putin, he said, is “willing to give it a try.”
Mr. Zelenskyy said the Europeans would sit right on the negotiating team at the next meeting, instead of holding separate talks. “They will have a voice. This is important to us, because the war is in Europe,” he said.
Mr. Witkoff said President Trump is determined to end the war. He said another round of talks has already been scheduled, the Azerbaijani news agency APA reported. He did not give a date or a place. Mr. Zelenskyy said the negotiators would meet again soon.
Mr. Kushner also talked about plans to rebuild Ukraine after the war, calling them “really incredible.” “The potential of Ukraine is incredible,” he said.
The Dublin meeting wrapped up three days of diplomacy led by the United States. Talks among American, Russian and Ukrainian teams in Abu Dhabi ended on Wednesday with a deal on a large prisoner exchange. The envoys then spent about four and a half hours with Mr. Putin in Moscow on Thursday before flying to Ireland.
