Morning opening: Okay, so what do we do now?
Russia and the US did not make progress toward a peace deal for Ukraine during their talks, a senior aide to Vladimir Putin has said, hours after the Russian president issued threats that Russia was ready for war with Europe.
Despite lots of pressure being put on Ukraine over the last week, the much-hyped talks in Moscow did not bring any results as Russia disagreed with the US proposals.
So, we are back to square one. The question is: what’s next?
Ahead of a ministerial meeting in Brussels today, Nato’s Mark Rutte was determined to look for positives as he insisted “the peace talks are ongoing,” but conceded that “we are not sure when they will end” and so the alliance should be ready to keep supporting Ukraine “to fight back against the Russians.”
Rutte declined to comment on Putin’s comments.
In a further sign that will worry Europeans, particularly after Putin’s war warning, US state secretary Marco Rubio is not attending the meeting. His deputy, Christopher Landau, is representing the US, despite appearing to question the need of Nato just a few months back.
But Rutte insisted there was nothing special about any of that, saying it was “totally acceptable” that Rubio could not come given his other duties, and saying that he had a dinner with Landau last night, who he thought would be “really great at the table.”
Let’s see what comes out of this meeting, with a press conference expected in the afternoon.
We should also hear from Ukraine’s Zelenskyy at some point with his take on yesterday’s talks at the Kremlin.
I will bring you all the key updates throughout the day.
It’s Wednesday, 3 December 2025, it’s Jakub Krupa here, and this is Europe Live.
Good morning.
