The significance of the round lies in its format as much as its substance.
A Russian delegation has arrived in Abu Dhabi to take part in trilateral talks with Ukraine and the United States, according to a report by the state-run Tass news agency cited by TRT World. The Russian team is led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, while Ukraine's delegation is headed by Rustem Umerov, the head of the country's Foreign Intelligence Service. The renewed round of negotiations is scheduled to begin on Tuesday.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the discussions would centre on security guarantees. He confirmed that European representatives would not take part, explaining that the negotiations had been agreed from the outset as a trilateral format. "As for the presence of Europeans, you know that the Americans have their own channels of communication with Europeans, and Ukrainians with Europeans," Peskov said, adding that the parties appeared to be building their own coordination mechanism alongside the Abu Dhabi track.
The meeting follows earlier US-mediated rounds held this year, on 23-24 January, 4-5 February and 17-18 February. The first two took place in Abu Dhabi and the third in Geneva, according to the report. The return to the Emirati capital therefore marks a continuation of a process that has already convened several times, rather than a new departure.
US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the talks to end the war had made good progress. "Ukraine and Russia, and by the way, we're having a very good conversation about that in Abu Dhabi," he told reporters at the White House. Such characterisations are the language of diplomacy rather than a statement of agreed outcomes, and no details of any draft text or concrete security arrangement have been disclosed in the material available.
The significance of the round lies in its format as much as its substance. Security guarantees are the hardest item on any agenda between the parties, and the exclusion of European governments from the room leaves their interests to be represented through separate channels with Washington and Kyiv. Whether that arrangement can produce terms that European capitals would be willing to underwrite is not addressed in the reporting. Nor is it clear what, if anything, has been agreed on the sequencing of a ceasefire, the monitoring of any truce, or the territorial questions that have divided the parties.
What is known is limited to the composition of the delegations, the stated focus on security guarantees, the trilateral format and the American president's upbeat assessment. The identities of other participants, the duration of the talks, the presence of any mediating framework beyond US involvement and the prospects for a binding outcome have not been confirmed. Readers should treat claims of progress with caution until the delegations themselves set out what has been discussed and what, if anything, has been signed.
