Negotiators from Ukraine, the United States and Russia will hold talks in the United Arab Emirates on Friday, marking the first known meeting since Moscow’s full-scale invasion in 2022 that all three countries will be present.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov confirmed that Russia will also join representatives of Ukraine and the United States at the “first meeting of the Trilateral Working Group on Security Issues” in Abu Dhabi, confirming an earlier statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He did not say when the talks were scheduled to start.
The meeting came after President Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner spoke for more than three hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin late Thursday. Kremlin aide Ushakov said the talks were “very substantive, very constructive, very frank and confidential.”
But he also warned that “without a solution to the territorial issue… we should not expect to achieve a long-term solution,” adding that Russia would continue to pursue its goals “on the battlefield where Russian forces have the strategic initiative” until an agreement is reached.
Recent U.S.-led efforts to broker an end to the four-year war have so far failed to halt the fighting, with Kremlin demands that Ukraine relinquish territory it has long claimed has stalled negotiations.
Russia occupies about 20% of the territory recognized as part of sovereign Ukraine under international law, including almost all of the Luhansk region and parts of Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions.
The Kremlin’s long-standing maximalist demands include the surrender of all four of these regions, which Ukraine has annexed but not fully conquered.
The Russian delegation to Abu Dhabi will be led by Admiral Igor Olegovich Kostyukov, head of the Main Intelligence Directorate. The Ukrainian side includes Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration and Chief of the General Staff Andriy Natov. The White House has not yet commented on the meeting.
Minutes into the Putin-Witkov meeting, Russia announced that its long-range bombers had conducted a scheduled five-hour patrol flight over the Baltic Sea on Thursday, a move likely intended as a show of force amid stepped-up diplomatic efforts.
Hours before flying to Moscow, Witkoff said negotiations were “focused on one issue,” suggesting a deal was probably within reach.
“I think we’ve reduced the problem to a problem, and we’ve talked about it over and over again, which means it’s solvable,” he said at an event in Davos on Thursday.
A European official later confirmed to CNN that the remaining issue Witkoff mentioned was territorial, but did not elaborate.
Ukraine’s Donbass region, with its rich farmland and important rivers, has been the object of Russian leader Vladamir Putin’s long-held aspirations. Losing this area would leave central Ukraine’s vast plains vulnerable to future Russian attacks.
The Trump administration has increased pressure on Ukraine to accept the peace deal, despite widespread concerns that it could favor Russia.
During his speech in Davos, the US president appeared to suggest that he felt a breakthrough between the two countries was near. Trump said of Zelensky and Putin: “I believe they are at a point now where they can come together and make a deal. If they don’t, they’re stupid.”
On Thursday, President Zelenskiy gave his own impassioned speech in Davos, calling on European leaders to do more to stop Putin’s war, comparing it to European countries’ response to President Trump’s threat to annex Greenland.
Zelenskiy also reiterated that unresolved territorial disputes in the east will be central to peace talks.
“It’s all about the eastern part of our country, it’s all about the land,” he said. “This is an unresolved problem.”
Ukraine is currently struggling to restore power to more than 1 million people left stranded in the freezing cold without heat after Russian missile and drone attacks.
On Thursday, Ukraine’s energy minister said the country’s power grid had endured its most difficult days since the end of 2022 due to “constant enemy attacks.”
