Russia plays down peace talks with Europe after Witkoff raises hopes of breakthrough

Russia has played down comments made by US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner suggesting Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to accept a European presence in the peace negotiations to end the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.Instead, it has asked Europe to cease military aid to Ukraine as a condition.Witkoff and Kushner landed in Moscow on Thursday to seek Putin's consent for Europeans to join a sought-after multilateral format.The trip came after two days of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, during which Moscow's delegation refused to sit down with the European team."The Europeans will join at the next meeting, which we consider to be a very important moment because they are our partners and it's important to us that they take part," Witkoff told reporters at the end of the meeting, according to Reuters.Kushner said the discussions had been "very fulsome and detailed" on all the topics and would "hopefully" feed into a multilateral format.But Putin's aide, Yuri Ushakov, cautioned against the prospect of having Russians and Europeans at the same table, saying that, first, Europeans need to decide between "peace" or "war", referring to their military support to Ukraine.Moscow has long equated Europe to a warring party due to the provision of weapons and ammunition that allies have sent to Kyiv."So far, all their practical actions point precisely to…