For the first time since February, Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators are scheduled to hold talks on ending the full-scale war that is nearing the five-year mark, with security guarantees topping the agenda.
The two-day session starting Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, follows previous negotiations early this year that failed to produce any visible progress toward ending Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II.
The talks follow last month’s localized truce around the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine that was brokered with the help of U.S. first lady Melania Trump and allowed the evacuation of some of its residents and the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian supplies.
But even as Moscow and Kyiv touted the weeklong ceasefire as a positive model, fierce fighting has continued along the 1,200-kilometer (750-mile) front line. Both sides also have escalated their long-range attacks on each other with drones and missiles.
Russia has intensified its strikes on Ukraine’s power system, seeking to undermine the country’s resolve as winter sets in. Moscow has relied on ballistic missiles and new, faster jet-powered drones, taking advantage of Ukraine’s shortage of U.S.-made Patriot interceptors.
A look at the talks and what’s on the agenda:
Russia and Ukraine have sharply divergent demands
Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on key elements of any prospective peace deal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to pull its troops back from the four regions that Moscow illegally annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured. He also demands that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO, accept strict limits on its military and drop restrictions on the Russian language and the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
Putin wants a comprehensive peace deal on those conditions and won’t agree to a general halt in hostilities, arguing such a pause would only allow Ukrainian troops to rest and replenish their weapons stockpiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejects Putin’s demands to voluntarily cede territory Russia has not been able to take on the battlefield and agree to limits on the military and arrangements with Western partners, which it sees as essential security guarantees to stop Moscow from invading again.
Ukraine argues that an immediate ceasefire is the first step toward negotiating a wider settlement and says a direct meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is the only way territorial issues can be settled.
Security guarantees top the agenda
Russia and Ukraine said the talks will focus on security guarantees.
Zelenskyy noted that Ukraine and its allies have discussed security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5, which states the alliance sees an attack on one of its members as an attack against all.
In a Nov. 5 interview, he said Ukraine’s security guarantees boil down to what Western allies would do if Russia launches a new invasion of his country. “If Russia starts again, what will happen?” Zelenskyy asked. “Who will do what, with what means, and when?”
Some European nations have mulled a possible deployment of their troops to Ukraine after a prospective peace deal. Russia rejects that as a nonstarter, warning it would view any European troops on Ukrainian soil as legitimate targets.
The Kremlin insists any prospective deal should also offer security guarantees for Russia. Just before Moscow launched the all-out invasion in 2022, it demanded that NATO roll back its deployments in the alliance’s member countries in Central and Eastern Europe, seeing their presence as a security threat. Similar demands will likely be part of any comprehensive peace deal proposed by Russia.
U.S. President Donald Trump said in a “60 Minutes” interview broadcast Sunday that Moscow and Kyiv are “very close” to a deal but added that “they’re going to end up with a little bit different shape Ukraine.”
He also declared after meeting Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev Nov. 4 at the White House that some kind of grand deal about European security was in the works, although he did not elaborate.
“It’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that it might include all of Europe.
Ukraine wants Europe at the table but Russia says no
Ukraine insists its European allies must have a seat at the negotiating table, while Russia opposes any such involvement at this stage.
“No one is going to invite them to the negotiating table,” Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov snapped.
Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said his delegation will meet separately with European envoys in Abu Dhabi.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Europeans would need to be involved in broader negotiations but only later.
“Since the discussion will touch upon the future security architecture in Europe while addressing the mutual security of Russia and Ukraine, at some stage it would be impossible to do it without the Europeans,” he said.
On Oct. 27, Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke by phone with Putin in their first known direct conversation since shortly after the 2022 invasion. They said they spoke in their capacity as the heads of Russia’s Nordic neighbors and not on behalf of the European Union, which has struggled to pick a negotiator with Moscow.
Peskov mocked the EU’s “protracted indecisiveness,” saying that its members “can’t even decide yet who is authorized to speak on their behalf.”
On Nov. 4, Zelenskyy said on X that he spoke to U.S. negotiators Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, saying the talks “must move forward at full throttle to bring this war to an end as quickly as possible.”
Kushner said Monday on X that he and Witkoff will meet with envoys from Ukraine, the EU, NATO, Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy before the three-way talks.
“Ultimately, achieving a comprehensive and lasting settlement will also require direct engagement between Russia and our European partners on the broader security arrangements that affect them,” he said. “By discussing postwar security, economic recovery, and the mechanisms needed to prevent future conflict, we hope to shift the focus from managing the war toward building the foundations for a durable peace.”
Kushner said the discussions will focus on “stronger consultation, reliable crisis communications, greater military transparency, and reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, while fully respecting the sovereignty and independent decision-making of every nation.”
The delegations have experienced participants
Putin aide Vladimir Medinsky, who led Russia’s delegation in the first direct peace talks with Ukraine in Istanbul in March 2022 and in subsequent sessions, remains Moscow’s chief negotiator.
A former culture minister who wrote books about purported Western plots against Russia over the centuries, Medinsky is known for his hard-line views and blustery statements. At the 2025 talks, also in Istanbul, he reportedly said it took Peter the Great 21 years to defeat Sweden in the 18th century and Moscow was now ready to fight as long as it takes.
The Russian team also includes deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov and deputy chief of the General Staff’s operational department Yuri Zhigarlovsky.
Ukraine’s delegation is led by Umerov, head of the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service, who attended earlier talks. It also reportedly includes Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, his deputy Sergiy Kyslytsya, and Davyd Arakhamia, parliamentary faction leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party.
By The Associated Press
