Kushner proposes Europe-Russia security talks modelled on NATO-Russia Council

US special presidential envoy Jared Kushner has proposed launching multilateral negotiations between European nations and Russia to design a post-war continental security architecture, modelling the initiative on the defunct NATO-Russia Council, according to a senior official familiar with internal deliberations.

Kushner outlined five pillars for the proposed framework on X: permanent security consultations, reliable crisis communications channels, greater military transparency, reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, and an enduring framework for long-term European security and stability.

The plan envisages transitioning from the current working-level trilateral talks between Ukraine, the US and Russia into a broader multilateral format with direct European participation, contingent on progress at Abu Dhabi talks scheduled for November 10–11.

The NATO-Russia Council, established in 2002 to facilitate security coordination between the Western alliance and Moscow, had its practical operations suspended in 2014 following Russia's annexation of Ukraine's Crimean peninsula and armed incursions into the Donbas region.

European allied governments and Ukrainian leadership rejected any sequencing that places the security-architecture discussion ahead of a verified ceasefire. "A Ukraine peace agreement has to be settled before an agreement on security architecture," a senior official from a close US ally said. A senior official from another key European country said: "Our approach is still that these issues can be discussed only after the war."

President Volodymyr Zelensky stated the same position in an interview with CNN host Jake Tapper. He said that "first, we must discuss how to end Russia's war against Ukraine," and second, what the security infrastructure for Ukraine would look like, warning that allowing Russia to shape continental security while striking civilian centres and energy grids risks repeating what he called a "Yalta 2.0" — great powers negotiating spheres of influence over sovereign states.