Jared Kushner is looking to the NATO-Russia Council as a model for post-war European security, according to reports from the Washington Post. The US envoy linked his push for a Ukraine truce to wider multilateral talks between Russia and Europe on post-war security for the continent. Columnist David Ignatius wrote that the template is the council set up after the Cold War, which was founded in Rome in 2002 five years after the Founding Act gave Moscow a standing seat for consultations with the alliance. The council last met in January 2022, a month before the full-scale invasion began, and it gave Russia a voice in NATO’s deliberations without granting it a vote in decisions. This structure fits the five goals Kushner set out on November 5: permanent consultations, crisis communications, military transparency, reciprocal steps to cut escalation risks, and a long-term framework where no country holds a veto over another’s alliances.
Two trains, one track
Europeans told Ignatius they are ready for a dialogue with Russia but will only agree a security framework once a ceasefire is in place in Ukraine. An official from a close US ally cautioned that the "Ukraine peace agreement has to be settled before agreement on security architecture," while a senior official from another leading European country noted that these issues can be discussed only after the war. Leading European governments back Kushner’s effort, but there is broad unity in Europe that talks with Russia should only follow a ceasefire. Sequencing is the issue that will decide it, as Kushner wants a simultaneous process with both tracks arriving at the same time, whereas Europe insists the ceasefire track come first. President Donald Trump said after meeting Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House on November 5 that "there’s going to be an agreement, it’s going to be a big agreement, and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine." Ignatius called that statement wildly premature given what European officials had told him about the lack of progress.
Abu Dhabi tests the security track
The round in the UAE capital on November 10-11 is the first three-way meeting since February, and both delegations have been built for security talks rather than a ceasefire alone. Russia is sending presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov, and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, deputy head of the General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate. It is Ryabkov’s first round, and he runs relations with Washington and arms control, with the agenda covering security, de-escalation, humanitarian steps, and mutual security guarantees. Ukraine’s team is led by Rustem Umerov and includes Kyrylo Budanov, head of the president’s office, and David Arakhamia. Kyiv has already handed its proposals to Washington, and it arrives with a 2027 war bill still unfunded. Every side has spent the past week setting out what a security deal has to contain, with Zelenskiy wanting guarantees spelled out clearly on paper so that if Russia starts attacking again, it is clear who will do what, with what means, and when. Moscow wants the guarantees to run both ways, calling indivisible security a cornerstone of our position, though Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on November 6 that Russia had received no ideas from Europe on security guarantees. Brussels is playing down the odds, with European Commission spokesperson Paula Pinho saying there is a very long way to go because we haven’t seen much movement on that side. Berlin told Washington the same day that any agreement must have the consent of NATO partners, and Chancellor Friedrich Merz has said that a meeting with Putin at the G20 summit in Miami in December is not excluded.
