For now, the talks matter less for what they may settle than for whether the three parties can keep meeting at all.
Negotiators from Russia and Ukraine are due to meet in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday for a third round of peace talks brokered by the United States, according to Al Jazeera. The Emirati capital hosted security consultations in January and February, and the three delegations last met in Geneva on February 18. Washington's mediation is led by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, envoys of President Donald Trump.
Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, used his nightly video address on Monday to argue that recent gains had strengthened his country's hand at the table. He said Ukrainian forces were "genuinely strengthening Ukraine's negotiating position", that Russia was "suffering record losses" — a claim Moscow disputes — and that long-range strikes on targets inside Russia, including oil facilities, were having an effect. He called on Washington to persuade the Kremlin to end the war. General Mykhailo Drapatyi, he said, had presented a report pointing to heavy recent Russian losses.
Trump, speaking to reporters in Washington, said he saw a "very strong inclination" towards ending the war and that both sides were "tired of fighting". He described the conversation in Abu Dhabi as "very good". The president promised a swift end to the war when he took office in January 2025, but nearly five years after Russia's full-scale invasion of February 2022 a settlement has remained elusive.
The substance of the talks, as outlined by a US official briefing on condition of anonymity, centres on security guarantees for Ukraine, including the possibility of a defence commitment modelled on Article 5 of NATO's founding treaty. The official said both sides had privately shown some flexibility on a possible exchange of territory, though any territorial agreement would most likely come at the end of the process, once other issues had been settled. The two positions remain far apart: Ukraine wants Russia pushed back to the original border, while Vladimir Putin wants the whole of the Donbas. Russia occupies roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of the Donbas, a move the international community has not recognised. Trump has previously urged Kyiv to cede territory for a deal.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio struck a cautious note, saying the process still has "a ways to go" and that Washington would keep trying to be creative in helping to end the conflict. Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service, will again lead Kyiv's delegation, according to The Kyiv Independent. Russia's team is headed by the Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky and includes the deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov and a senior military officer, Yuri Zhigarlovsky. European officials from France, Germany and the European Commission will attend, but the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the negotiations had been agreed as a trilateral format and Europeans would not take part.
What the meeting produces is not yet known. The reported flexibility on territory is unattributed and unconfirmed by either delegation, and the gap between the stated positions on borders and on the Donbas is wide. The presence of European officials without a seat at the table points to the awkward geometry of the process. For now, the talks matter less for what they may settle than for whether the three parties can keep meeting at all.
