A view through the destroyed walls of a kindergarten shows a large bomb crater and a damaged residential building following a missile attack in kyiv, Saturday, November 7, 2026.
Dan Bachakov/AP
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Dan Bachakov/AP
European officials will be present this week at peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in the United Arab Emirates, under the auspices of the United States, the French foreign minister announced. said Sunday, days after the Kremlin insisted European powers could play no role in the meeting.
“France will be there and will ensure that the voice of Europe is heard,” Jean-Noël Barrot told French radio. He did not specify who would represent Paris, nor whether French or European officials would participate directly in the negotiations, or simply observe.
The meetings, due to take place in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday, had previously been billed as a three-way meeting between Washington, Moscow and kyiv.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov previously ruled out a European role, saying the trilateral format had already been agreed.
Speaking to a Russian news channel on Friday, he accused European governments are failing to decide who speaks on their behalf, while recognizing that security negotiations will at some point require European involvement.
On Thursday, President Trump met with Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev and said a future agreement “would involve much more than Ukraine”, adding that it could even involve “all of Europe”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said CNN said Friday it had not received details of the deal Trump referred to, and warned: “To me, it’s not simple and it can be dangerous.” He pointed to the Yalta Conference of 1945, at which Allied leaders settled the division of Europe without the participation of several affected countries.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, right, and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy attend a news conference in Berlin, Germany, Tuesday, November 3, 2026.
Ebrahim Noroozi/AP
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Ebrahim Noroozi/AP
A blocked process restarts
This will be the fourth round of talks between the two warring nations negotiated by the Trump administration, and the first since those in Geneva last February. Previous U.S.-brokered meetings made little progress, and the chances of a breakthrough dwindled as the Trump administration focused on its war against Iran.
Moscow confirmed it would return to the negotiating table only after US envoy Steve Witkoff visits to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg in October. Those talks saw Putin announce the release of an American prisoner from a Russian jail – an apparent move by the Kremlin over President Trump’s earlier lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel exports. Ukraine was fiercely opposed to the fuel sales, arguing that they helped replenish Moscow’s war chest.
Witkoff said the agenda for these latest talks would include post-war security arrangements and conflict de-escalation and humanitarian issues, shortly after Melania Trump helped broker a deal. limited ceasefire which allowed humanitarian aid to enter a town in Russian-occupied Ukraine.
The Russian delegation will again be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hardline Putin aide who has participated in most of the talks with Ukraine since the first round of talks collapsed in March 2022.
For the first time, Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, as well as Deputy Head of the Operations Directorate of the General Staff Yuri Zhigarlovsky, alongside the head of military intelligence Igor Kostyukov, will also participate for the first time in these discussions.
This higher-ranking composition could indicate that Moscow is more ready than before to tackle thorny political and military issues. But the American think tank Institute for the Study of War suggested some of these same Russian officials have in fact already sought to slow down previous negotiations or place greater emphasis on Moscow’s demands.
The differences between the two countries remain significant. Russia has demanded that Ukraine cede much of its territory and renounce its NATO membership. Zelensky has repeatedly insisted that any security commitments must be clearly spelled out, including who would act and how if Russia attacked again.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, right, interacts with people at the monument to merchant Kuzma Minin and Prince Dmitry Pozharsky, leaders of the fight against foreign invaders in 1612, on Red Square in Moscow, Wednesday, November 4, 2026, during celebrations of National Unity Day.
Yuri Kochetkov/Pool Sputnik Kremlin
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Yuri Kochetkov/Pool Sputnik Kremlin
Skepticism and political change
Some analysts expect little. In a opinion piece for the Atlantic Council According to a think tank, former US ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst argued that Putin rejected all US proposals accepted by kyiv and preferred to participate in peace talks rather than seek real peace. “Perhaps the only outcome of the negotiations,” he wrote, “will be to agree on a new round.”
The meetings in the United Arab Emirates also follow Democrats’ midterm victories, which Zelensky said could improve Ukraine’s chances of getting more U.S. aid.
Russia, too, may seek to push for the outlines of a deal with Ukraine proposed by the Trump administration – ahead of a Democratic-controlled Congress in January.
Also hovering over the discussions is the prospect of a trilateral meeting of Trump, Xi and Putin at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Shenzhen, China, later this month. Although details remain unclear, all parties have confirmed that discussions are ongoing.
And while officials travel to Abu Dhabi to talk peace, the war still rages.
Zelensky said Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles at the kyiv region overnight Saturday, only four of which were intercepted. accusing Moscow to treat diplomacy “as a form of aggression”.
In southern Ukraine, the death toll from a guided bomb strike on Monday on an aid distribution site in Komyshuvakha rose to at least 55 dead.
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