WARSAW (Reuters) – Peace talks on the war in Ukraine could possibly start this winter, Poland’s prime minister said on Tuesday, as he outlined a series of planned meetings as Warsaw seeks to play a leading role in ending the conflict.
Poland has been one of Kyiv’s staunchest supporters since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said Warsaw would be heavily involved in any talks when it takes up the European Union’s rotating presidency on Jan. 1.
“I will have a series of talks concerning primarily the situation beyond our eastern border,” he told a government meeting.
“As you can imagine, our delegation will be co-responsible for, among other things, what the political calendar will look like, perhaps what the situation will be like during the negotiations, which may, although there is still a question mark, start in the winter of this year.”
Tusk said French President Emmanuel Macron would visit Warsaw on Thursday to give a rundown on talks with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Paris last weekend.
He said he was in constant contact with Warsaw’s Scandinavian and Baltic allies, and that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer would visit Warsaw in the early days of Poland’s EU presidency.
“I really want Poland to be the country that will not only be present, but will set the tone for these decisions that are to bring us security and secure Polish interests,” Tusk said.
Zelenskiy made the case on Monday for a diplomatic resolution to the war, his latest comments suggesting Kyiv’s growing openness to negotiations, but said he had told Trump and Macron that he did not believe Putin wants to end the war.
The Kremlin said on Tuesday the war would continue until the goals set by Putin were achieved by military action or through negotiation.
(Reporting by Alan Charlish, Pawel Florkiewicz, Anna Wlodarczak-Semczuk, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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