Rubio and Witkoff met Ukrainian and European officials for landmark talks on Ukraine's future

PARIS — France hosted high-level talks Thursday to discuss Ukraine and its security, the first time since President Donald Trump's inauguration that top American, Ukrainian and European officials are known to have met together to discuss an end to the war.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and presidential envoy Steve Witkoff joined other top Ukrainian and European officials for hours of separate meetings at the French presidential palace before French President Emmanuel Macron brought them all together for a final round of talks at the end of the day.

Macron described the talks as an important ''convergence." France announced that talks in the same format would continue in London next week.

The meetings came as concerns grow about Trump's readiness to draw closer to Russia and after weeks of U.S. efforts to broker a ceasefire in Ukraine failed to bring an end to the fighting. There is also frustration among Europeans over the Trump administration's other moves, from tariffs on some of its closest partners to rhetoric about NATO and Greenland.

The American view in Paris

Rubio wrote on X that the American delegation in Paris was looking to ''secure real, practical solutions to end the Russia-Ukraine war."

Rubio also spoke by phone Thursday with his Russian counterpart, Sergey Lavrov, conveying the same message he gave the delegations in Paris, U.S. State Department spokeswoman Tammy Bruce said in a statement.

''President Trump and the United States want this war to end, and have now presented to all parties the outlines of a durable and lasting peace,'' the statement says. ''The encouraging reception in Paris to the U.S. framework shows that peace is possible if all parties commit to reaching an agreement.''

Until now, Trump's officials have pursued separate negotiating tracks between the United States and Ukraine, and between the U.S. and Russia.

Senior U.S. officials had previously made comments suggesting European representatives would not be involved in ceasefire negotiations. Experts said the talks are thought to be the first time Witkoff — Trump's chief envoy tasked with negotiating with Russian President Vladimir Putin — has met senior Ukrainian officials.

Alina Polyakova, president of the Center for European Policy Analysis in Washington, called this "really, really important. And I think that is emerging because I think the U.S. process has stalled and ... they realized that you need European input because they have skin in the game.''

''This is not just about a swath of territory in Ukraine,'' she said. "This is about broader questions of European security and you can't disentangle those.″

Ukraine's goals

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he wanted his representatives to raise the question of security guarantees for Ukraine, and said he gave his team a mandate to discuss a full and partial ceasefire — but not matters relating to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

A senior French official said after Thursday's talks that U.S. officials were ''ready to discuss security guarantees,″ without elaborating. The official spoke anonymously as he was not authorized to be publicly named, according to presidential policy.

Ukraine's presidential adviser, Andrii Yermak, said the Ukrainian delegation and European partners discussed the next steps toward achieving a ''just and lasting peace,'' including a full ceasefire, the deployment of a multinational military contingent, and the development of an effective security architecture for Ukraine.

''It was a very substantive conversation. We continue our work,'' he wrote.

Trump's special envoy to Ukraine and Russia, retired Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg, also joined the talks. Other participants included Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha and Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, British Foreign Secretary David Lammy, the German government's foreign policy adviser and German Foreign Ministry's political director.

A coalition of the willing

Around 30 countries led by Britain and France have been discussing a possible coalition to police any future peace agreement with Russia.

The success of the coalition's operation hinges on U.S. backup with airpower or other military assistance, but the Trump administration has made no public commitment to provide support which European officials say is critical.

Polyakova, from the Washington group CEPA, suggested peace efforts have so-far failed because Putin does not want a ceasefire and is stalling for time. The Trump administration's strategy so far has been to offer Russia ''lots of carrots" but ''very few sticks'' to bring Moscow to the negotiating table, she said.

The question ''is whether these talks in this format will shift the administration's strategy,'' she added.

Macron spoke with Zelenskyy twice during the day and has spoken frequently with Trump in recent weeks. France hailed Thursday's meetings as a diplomatic success borne from those relationships.

Attacks as pressure

Hours earlier, a massive drone attack hit the Ukrainian city of Dnipro on Wednesday night, killing three people, including a child, regional authorities said.

Ukrainian government officials and military analysts have said that Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in the coming weeks to maximize pressure on Kyiv and strengthen the Kremlin's negotiating position in ceasefire talks.

Rubio and Witkoff have helped lead U.S. efforts to seek peace more than three years after Russia launched the war. Several rounds of negotiations have been held in Saudi Arabia, and Witkoff met last week with Putin.

Moscow has effectively refused to accept a comprehensive ceasefire that Trump has pushed and Ukraine has endorsed. Russia has made it conditional on a halt in Ukraine's mobilization efforts and Western arms supplies, which are demands rejected by Ukraine.

At Thursday's talks in Paris, Macron also discussed the impact of Trump's tariff policies and the conflicts in the Mideast.

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Burrows reported from London. Associated Press writers Illia Novikov and Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.

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Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine