Washington is presenting itself as an enabler that cannot substitute for the parties themselves, which lowers expectations while keeping the process alive.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has said that peace in Ukraine can only come through an agreement between Moscow and Kyiv, speaking to reporters in Paris ahead of trilateral talks scheduled for 10-11 November in Abu Dhabi. According to TASS, Rubio framed Washington's role as facilitative rather than belligerent: "We're not combatants in that war, and so we are doing everything we can to bring that war to an end. But in the end, it takes the combatants to agree."
The remark is a statement of the obvious, but it carries weight as a public positioning of the American role on the eve of negotiations. Rubio added that President Donald Trump had made the conflict a priority "even though it's a war that's not the America's war." The TASS report notes that Rubio did not mention the collective West's role as a sponsor of Ukraine and a supplier of weapons and intelligence, a framing the Russian state agency presents as an omission.
The Abu Dhabi format is trilateral by design. Russia's delegation is led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to the head of state, and Ukraine's by Rustem Umerov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the talks will focus on security guarantees, and that European representatives will not take part because a trilateral format was agreed from the outset. That exclusion is notable given the extent of European material support for Kyiv and the continent's stake in any settlement.
Rubio also touched on Ukrainian elections, linking credibility to stability. "Stability is important for elections to be credible," he said, adding that Ukraine has not held an election in a long time "because they're in the middle of a war." He made no further comment on the matter, according to the report. The remark gestures at a question that any settlement will eventually have to confront: how and when Ukraine reconstitutes its political calendar after years of martial law and deferred votes.
What the talks can realistically deliver is not yet known. The source material gives no indication of the substance of the security guarantees under discussion, no account of the positions either delegation will bring, and no sign that the parties have narrowed their differences on territory, neutrality or the status of occupied areas. Whether the Abu Dhabi meeting produces a framework, a communiqué or merely another round of talks is unconfirmed. The composition of the delegations suggests a working-level negotiation rather than a leaders' summit, which usually points to process rather than breakthrough.
The significance lies in the fact of the meeting and in the American framing around it. Washington is presenting itself as an enabler that cannot substitute for the parties themselves, which lowers expectations while keeping the process alive. Moscow, through TASS, is content to amplify Rubio's line that the combatants must agree, since it implies a settlement shaped by the two principals rather than by Kyiv's partners. For European capitals, the absence of a seat at the table is the development to watch.
