France Says Europe Now 'At The Table' As Paris Peace Talks End

French officials have praised talks held between key European countries, Ukraine, and the United States, the first involving the three sides since US President Donald Trump took power, as they look to end Europe's largest conflict since the end of World War II.

Until the gathering in the French capital on April 17, US officials had taken negotiating tracks -- one between the United States and Ukraine and one between Washington and Moscow -- that appeared to leave Europe on the sidelines.

French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said that was no longer the case, with Europe now fully involved in helping end the war between Russia and Ukraine, now in its fourth year. More talks in the new format would continue next week in London, he added.

"For a long time, there were fears that Europeans would not be at the table," Barrot said.

"Today, it was in Paris that, for the first time, the Europeans, the Americans, and the Ukrainians came together."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said later on April 17 that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio outlined the outcome of talks in a telephone conversation, and Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov “confirmed Moscow's readiness to continue joint work with American colleagues with the aim of eliminating the original causes of the Ukrainian crisis."

Russia has repeatedly said Ukraine must recognize Russia's annexation of Ukrainian regions and that Kyiv must abandon any notion of it securing membership of the NATO alliance.

The Paris meeting came days after the latest direct talks between Washington and Moscow that are aimed at ending the war.

There have been sharp differences between the Trump administration on one side, and Europe and Ukraine, on the other, over how to handle diplomatic efforts.

“It was a very substantive conversation. We continue our work,” Ukrainian presidential adviser Andriy Yermak wrote on social media.

The talks were a first chance for face-to-face meetings between senior European and Ukrainian leaders and US special envoy Steve Witkoff since his latest meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin last week.

Moscow has failed to sign on to a broad cease-fire agreement put forward by US President Donald Trump, which Ukraine has already accepted. Russia has said any deal is conditional on Kyiv stopping its mobilization efforts as well as an end to the flow of Western arms to Ukraine. Those demands have been rejected by Ukraine.

Still, Witkoff recently told Fox News that he believes a peace deal was “emerging.”

He said he had heard “what Putin’s request is to have a permanent peace here,” adding that it was “about these so-called five territories.” This refers to parts of Ukraine at least partially occupied by Russia, which Moscow claims.

As the Paris talks continued, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told journalists in Kyiv that Witkoff was "consciously or unconsciously, I don't know, spreading Russian narratives."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that while Washington was working for peace, "from the Europeans, we see a focus on continuing the war."

Meanwhile, there has been no letup in deadly Russian missile strikes on Ukrainian cities in recent days. On April 16, a Russian drone attack on Dnipro killed at least five people.

"Russia uses every day and every night to kill. We must put pressure on the killers... to end this war and guarantee a lasting peace," Zelenskyy said in a Telegram post.

The talks also included Rubio, British National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell and Jens Ploetner, a senior adviser to German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

While Washington has tried to push ahead with cease-fire talks with Kyiv and Moscow, European countries have focused on supporting Ukraine and planning for a possible military mission to shore up any cease-fire deal.

European efforts to get a US commitment to provide a “backstop” to such efforts have met with a cool response from Washington.