The United States, Ukraine and Russia have started talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday aimed at ending the war in Ukraine that began in 2022 when Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of his country’s neighbor.
The two-day session is the first such meeting since February and will focus on security guarantees, a long-running demand from Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner said in a post on X that he and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff were “working hard to find a negotiated solution that can deliver lasting peace and create the conditions for a sovereign, secure, and prosperous Ukraine within a more stable European security environment.”
Kushner indicated these talks are just an initial step but could “build momentum” toward future negotiations. He also suggested a future agreement would involve a security arrangement involving European countries and Russia.
But on Tuesday both Russia and Ukraine seemed to pour cold water on the initiative.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia rejects European demands for a ceasefire in Ukraine, asserting that Brussels was just trying to “buy time” for Kyiv.
“We will not agree to this,” he said.
He added that Moscow did not want to prevent the U.S. from engaging with Europe on the Ukraine war, but it does not consider that to be the best approach.
Ukraine argues that an immediate ceasefire is the necessary first step toward negotiating a wider settlement and says a direct meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is the only way territorial issues can be settled.
Zelenskyy posted on Telegram, meanwhile, that the U.S. had asked if Kyiv would “‘trade the Donbas for security,” but that the U.S. said that did not mean Ukraine joining NATO, “‘but something similar.'”
“No one believes that Putin will stop if we give up the Donbas,” he added. “He might pause — but then he will return in a year, two years, or five years. And who will be to blame then?”
Putin has previously said he wanted Ukraine to pull its troops back from Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, the four regions Moscow illegally annexed in September 2022 but never fully captured. He also demanded that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO, accept strict limits on its military and drop restrictions on the Russian language and the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
Zelenskyy rejected Putin’s demands to voluntarily cede territory that Russia hasn’t been able to take on the battlefield. Zelenskyy also rejected any limits on Ukraine’s military or its arrangements with Western partners, which Kyiv sees as essential security guarantees to stop Moscow from invading again.
The U.S., Russia and Ukraine have held three other rounds of trilateral talks this year, in January and February, but diplomatic efforts largely stalled after Mr. Trump launched a war on Iran. Since then, Witkoff and Kushner have held various separate meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy.
In October, first lady Melania Trump’s office said she had secured a temporary ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine for the Russian-occupied Ukrainian city of Oleshky for humanitarian reasons. It lasted from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1.
