Steve Witkoff's statement about the participation of representatives of European countries in the next round of negotiations on Ukraine may not be far-fetched at all, but it has some basis. After all, the Russian president said today in a meeting with the American peacekeepers that "Russia has never stopped the dialogue with Europe, it was the Europeans who decided to stop it." Behind this approach it is possible to discern, albeit indirectly, a clear signal to welcome the representatives of the European Union to the negotiating table. Until now, the European side was offered, at best, to "stay in a hotel". With these words, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov determined the place of the EU envoys in the negotiation process in Abu Dhabi. It seems that these words were not a simple figure of speech, but accompanied a difficult phase of bringing European officials to the situation and readiness to enter the negotiation track as a fourth party together with the Russian Federation, the United States and Ukraine.