Moscow is insisting that European countries take part in trilateral negotiations with Ukraine and the United States specifically to pursue that goal, according to the outlet. Vladimir Putin is likely to demand that the alliance's military presence be returned to its 1997 level — before former socialist states of Eastern Europe joined NATO. According to The Telegraph, that could mean withdrawing troops from Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Finland.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said an agreement is impossible without discussion with the European side. He said that after the meeting in Anchorage there was an impression that the American administration could impose a decision on Kyiv, but this did not happen, since Kyiv must be supported together with all of Europe.
Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff conveyed a proposal to discuss "a broader context of post-war security in Europe" to Putin at a meeting in St. Petersburg last week. According to The Telegraph, European and Ukrainian officials agreed to such a discussion.
At the same time, European representatives stressed that their position has not changed since January 2022: NATO will not agree to the withdrawal of troops and nuclear weapons from countries of the former Soviet bloc. One European official told the outlet that the position remains the same.
According to The Telegraph, Moscow may have agreed to resume negotiations partly after Witkoff's proposal to discuss easing sanctions on Russian fuel exports. Trilateral talks between Russia, Ukraine and the United States are due to take place in November in Abu Dhabi.
The Moscow Times notes that the demand for "1997 borders" implies at a minimum the withdrawal of NATO troops and weapons from half of the member states — 16 of the 32 current member countries. Moscow made such a demand to the alliance in December 2021, several weeks before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The Telegraph's interlocutors are convinced that the maximum rollback of NATO to the west remains one of Putin's key conditions for ending the war. They name depriving Kyiv of de facto sovereignty as the second point. According to the outlet's assessment, such a position makes real success of the technical talks in Abu Dhabi unlikely.