Trump envoy Witkoff, Kushner to join Paris talks on Ukraine security guarantees

Donald Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the US president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will travel to Paris to take part in talks on Ukraine starting on Tuesday, a White House official told several outlets on Monday.

The discussions will bring together leaders from roughly 30 countries belonging to the so-called Coalition of the Willing, a grouping seeking to provide security guarantees for Ukraine should a peace agreement be reached.

“We will talk over the final details” of those guarantees in Paris, President Volodymyr Zelensky said previously. Any resulting document, he added, would be ratified by the parliaments of the countries participating in the coalition.

Central to the talks are questions over whether states are prepared to deploy troops inside Ukraine or close to it, and what mandate any force charged with overseeing a ceasefire would be given.

Moscow has repeatedly warned it will not accept the presence of NATO troops on Ukrainian soil, warning that they would be regarded as “legitimate targets” by the Kremlin.

However, Zelensky said on Jan. 3 that any credible security framework would have to include the physical deployment of foreign troops in Ukraine, since Moscow is unlikely to be deterred by promises alone.

The Ukrainian president has also said that bilateral security guarantees between Kyiv and Washington are already “100% agreed,” though Trump countered that it was more like “close to 95%.”

A broader framework incorporating the US, Ukraine and Europe is close to completion.

Speaking after a meeting with Trump in Florida, Zelensky said the draft peace plan envisaged US security guarantees for at least 15 years, but that he had pressed the US president to extend them to half a century.

“I told him that we already have a war going on and it has been going on for almost 15 years. And so I really wanted the guarantees to be longer,” Zelensky said. “I told him that we really want to consider the possibility of 30, 40, 50 years. The president said he would think about it.”

Zelensky had previously said that representatives of Trump’s administration would attend the Paris talks, adding that the discussions would “last a day, or perhaps two – we will see how things develop.”