Joe is based in Brussels, where he focuses on European politics and defence. He has covered the Ukraine war and its peace negotiations and reported on US elections from Washington DC 6:30pm GMT Russia will attempt to use a fresh round of Ukraine peace talks to secure concessions that weaken Nato’s defences.

Yuri Ushakov, a Kremlin foreign policy aide, said Europe should be included in the negotiations between Russian, Ukrainian and American officials because the Continent would be crucial to reaching an agreement.

But diplomatic sources told The Telegraph that Russia’s motive for including European nations was to use the next round of talks to win concessions over Nato expansion, which Vladimir Putin has called the “root cause” of the war.

The Kremlin has previously suggested the Russian president may be willing to compromise on other issues if his core demands are met, essentially stripping Ukraine of its sovereignty and forcing Nato to roll back its eastward growth.

Putin will probably demand that Nato’s footprint in Europe be reduced to its 1997 level, before former Eastern bloc countries began joining the alliance.

That would mean a potential withdrawal of Nato troops from Poland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Finland, which joined the alliance in 2023. All five countries share a border with Russia.

Last week, Russia agreed to hold technical three-way talks in Abu Dhabi next month after a lengthy pause in the US-mediated negotiations.

In an interview with state media, Mr Ushakov said he did not expect the meeting to yield significant progress, describing it as a “trial run”.

Volodymyr Zelensky is ready for peace talks, but any settlement must include a ceasefire and credible security guarantees to prevent Russia attacking again Previous rounds of talks have failed to secure a ceasefire because Putin has repeatedly demanded that Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, cede territory in the eastern Donbas region that Russian forces have yet to conquer.

Moscow believes this concession was made on Kyiv’s behalf by Donald Trump when he met Putin in Alaska last year.

“Before, it seemed after Anchorage, that the US administration might be able to dictate something and force Kyiv to comply. But so far, this hasn’t really worked out,” Mr Ushakov said.

“That’s because it’s not enough to talk only to Kyiv; we need to talk to the whole of Europe, which fully supports Kyiv.”Both European and Ukrainian officials agreed that they would be willing to discuss the “wider context of post-war security arrangements in Europe” at the talks in Abu Dhabi.

The proposal was delivered by Steve Witkoff, a US presidential envoy, during a three-hour meeting with Putin in St Petersburg last week.

While the Kremlin has struck a pessimistic tone about the prospect of a ceasefire, Putin appears to have been persuaded back to the negotiating table by an offer to discuss his demands and Washington’s decision to waive sanctions on Russian fuel exports. Senior sources have insisted that Europe’s rejection of Russia’s demands remains firm.

“Our position remains the same as in January 2022,” one European official said, referring to a letter sent to Moscow by Jens Stoltenberg, the former Nato secretary-general. At the time, Putin suggested that meeting his demands would avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

But while the Western alliance agreed to discuss his concerns, it ruled out withdrawing troops and nuclear weapons from former Soviet states.

In an interview with Ukrainian television, Mr Zelensky announced the trilateral talks would take place “next month”.

He said the gathering would not end the war, but his team would seek limited ceasefires covering energy and grain exports, as well as prisoner exchanges.

“These are concrete things, while a meeting at the level of leaders is an opportunity to have something concrete after our trilateral,” Mr Zelensky said.

“This is what we are asking for and proposing. We are not demanding it, but proposing it to the American side. Then that would show seriousness.

“But if this is just a political trick and Putin is simply saying, ‘Yes, I’m ready’ because he does not want escalation with America before the elections, then we will see very quickly in November whether it was a trick or not.”Several buildings were hit in Ukraine’s overnight drone strike on Belgorod Meanwhile, overnight on Saturday a drone attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod killed three people and injured 13.

It damaged 30 apartment buildings, 35 cars, four houses, three offices, eight commercial premises and three social facilities, Alexander Shuvayev, the regional governor, said.