Russian and Ukrainian negotiators are set to meet for US-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy saying recent progress on the battlefield had strengthened his country’s position.
Tuesday’s meeting in the UAE capital will be the third round of talks this year, following security consultations in January and February. The American side is led by US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, who led the mediation from Washington.
The three delegations met for the last time in Geneva on February 18.
“Ukrainian forces are now truly strengthening Ukraine’s negotiating position,” Zelensky said Monday in his nightly video address. He said Russia was “suffering record losses,” a claim disputed by Moscow, and urged Washington to persuade the Kremlin to end the war.
Zelensky said Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi presented a report on Ukrainian military positions that noted recent heavy Russian losses and that Ukraine’s long-range strikes on targets in Russia, including oil installations, were having an effect.
“We are responding to the Russian war in a fully justified manner and demonstrating that this war must end,” he said. “Russia can do it. It can end its war. It is important that the United States convinces Russia of precisely that.”
“Strong inclination”
In Washington, D.C., Trump told reporters that he saw a “very strong trend” toward ending the war and that both sides were “tired of fighting.”
“We are having a very good conversation about this in Abu Dhabi,” he said.
Trump had promised to quickly end the war when he took office in January 2025, but a settlement has remained elusive nearly five years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
A U.S. official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity, said Monday that Russia and Ukraine had privately demonstrated some flexibility over a possible territory swap. Security guarantees for Ukraine would be a central topic, the official said, including the possibility of a defense engagement modeled on Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty.
Both Ukraine and Russia are adamant on the territory issue.
Ukraine wants Russia pushed back to the original border between the two countries, while Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to reclaim the entire Donbas region.
Russia occupies around 20% of Ukraine’s territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbass region. The Russian move has not been recognized by the international community, but Trump has already urged kyiv to cede territory in exchange for a deal ending the war.
The U.S. official said any territorial agreement would most likely come at the end of negotiations, once other issues, including the postwar security framework, had been resolved.
“Paths to follow”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio was cautious, saying the process of ending the war still had “a ways to go.”
“We’ll keep trying. And that’s what we’ve been trying to do all this time, is to be creative and find ways to help end this conflict and this war,” Rubio said.
Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service, will again lead the country’s delegation, according to The Kyiv Independent. The Russian team will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, a Kremlin aide, and will include Sergei Ryabkov, deputy foreign minister, as well as Yuri Zhigarlovsky, a senior army officer.
European powers including France, Germany and the European Commission will send officials to the negotiations in Abu Dhabi, but Russia has made clear it does not want Europeans to participate in the negotiations.
Dmitry Peskov, a Kremlin spokesman, said the negotiations would focus on security guarantees. European officials will not participate, he added, because the negotiations were agreed to a three-way format.
“What will take place in Abu Dhabi in the coming days are trilateral negotiations between Russia and Ukraine with American mediation,” Peskov said. “As for the presence of Europeans, you know that the Americans have their own channels of communication with the Europeans and the Ukrainians with the Europeans.”
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