Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv and Moscow to hold trilateral peace talks with US for first time

British defence minister John Healey said on Thursday Britain had provided tracking and monitoring support for a French operation to board a Russian tanker.

Healey added that this support included a vessel, HMS Dagger, monitoring the tanker as it passed through the Straits of Gibraltar.

Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof said on Thursday he was convinced the United States would follow up on security guarantees for Ukraine if these were agreed in a possible peace deal.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he discussed security guarantees and a plan for post-war recovery during his meeting with US President Donald Trump in Davos earlier in the day.

Poland hopes European Union countries will act together on Greenland, US President Donald Trump’s “Board of Peace” and Ukraine, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said before an emergency summit of EU leaders in Brussels on Thursday.

“For us, the United States is absolutely the most important partner when it comes to our security,” he said, adding that Europe needs to protect its relations with the US.

“Dear friends, we should not degrade ourselves to secondary roles, not when we have a chance to be a great power together. We should not accept that Europe is just a salad of small and middle powers, seasoned with enemies of Europe,” the Ukrainian president thundered.

World affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:

The European Union should not lose focus on the war in Ukraine amid threats from US President Donald Trump to acquire Greenland, Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin said ahead of an emergency EU leaders summit held in Brussels on Thursday.

US envoy for Ukraine Steve Witkoff was due in Moscow later on Thursday with fellow US envoy Jared Kushner – Donald Trump’s son-in-law – for talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin on the possible plan to end Europe’s deadliest war since World War Two.

After those discussions, negotiators would head directly to Abu Dhabi, Witkoff said on Thursday, “where there will be military-to-military talks and discussion of the prosperity package”.

Russia has been cool on the US-led peace push, demanding that Kyiv give up part of its eastern Donetsk region which Moscow has been unable to conquer despite grinding forward on the battlefield.

Putin said late on Wednesday that they would discuss a settlement on Ukraine and the possibility of using frozen Russian assets for reconstruction of Moscow-occupied land, as well as Trump’s proposal for a Board of Peace, tasked with promoting peace around the world.

Critics of the proposal have said it would rival or undermine the United Nations.

The Kremlin said Putin’s meeting with Witkoff and Kushner will take place after 7pm Moscow time (4pm GMT).

Paris has not notified the Russian embassy in France about the interception of a tanker in the Mediterranean Sea, Russian news agency TASS reported on Thursday, citing the embassy.

“At the moment, together with diplomats from the Consulate General in Marseille, we are trying to find out whether there are any Russian citizens among the crew members in order to provide the necessary assistance,” the embassy said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday that a document outlining US security guarantees for Ukraine was complete but that territorial issues had not yet been resolved in the war against Russia’s invading forces.

Speaking to reporters in at the World Economic Forum in Davos, he said both Russia and Ukraine should make compromises in the peace process, and that an upcoming trilateral meeting of top officials was a “positive” step.

“We speak about one issue, which is the most difficult which has been not solved, and I think trilateral meetings will show each variant,” Zelensky said.

Finnish President Alexander Stubb said on Thursday that US President Donald Trump was putting pressure on Russia over the war in Ukraine and that he hoped he would continue to do so.

“I think President Trump is putting a lot of pressure on Russia, and I hope he continues to do that,” Stubb told Reuters on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky on Thursday welcomed the French navy intercepting a sanctioned Russian tanker in the Mediterranean, saying such action was “exactly the kind of resolve needed” to stop Russian oil revenues from financing war in Ukraine.

“Vessels must be apprehended. And wouldn‘t it be fair to confiscate and sell the oil carried by these tankers?” he said on X.