European Union officials are hosting talks in Brussels on Wednesday with representatives of Ukraine, the United States, NATO, France, Germany, Britain and the World Bank, focusing on Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction and security guarantees. The meeting comes ahead of US-mediated negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on November 10–11. Moscow has ruled out European participation in that trilateral format. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said European representatives could travel there but would not be invited to the negotiating table. European governments have struggled to agree on how to secure a role in negotiations, as concerns about exclusion have grown. Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke with Vladimir Putin last week, drawing objections from some European capitals. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has also warned against a possible separate Trump-Putin-Xi summit becoming another Yalta, invoking the 1945 conference that shaped postwar Europe. Many Central and Eastern Europeans came to view Yalta as a betrayal that left their countries under Soviet domination for decades.
