The trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States on ending the four-year war in Ukraine are set to continue in Abu Dhabi on Saturday, UAE officials confirmed.
The talks, which began on Friday, comprise a Russian delegation that’s led by Yury Ushakov, foreign policy aide of President Vladimir Putin and GRU military intelligence Chief, Admiral Igor Kostyukov; Ukraine is represented by national security chief, Rustem Umerov, general staff chief, Andrey Gnatov, negotiator, David Arakhamia, deputy Foreign Minister, Sergey Kislitsa, and Kirill Budanov, the former secret police chief who now heads Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office. From the US, special envoy Steve Witkoff, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are acting as mediators.
While no official statement has yet been released on the meeting updates, sources briefed multiple international media outlets that “nobody is walking away from the table”.
A White House official described the ongoing discussions as moving in a “positive and right direction”, with US mediators indicating on Friday that a deal is nearing finalisation, though territorial concessions in eastern Ukraine remain the primary obstacle.
The talks follow US President Donald Trump’s proposed 28-point roadmap to bringing peace to Russia and Ukraine, which was outlined last year. Trump has hinted recently that Ukraine will need to cede certain territories to Russia in exchange for an end to hostilities.
In a recent interview with a prominent American journalist, Russian foreign policy thinker and Putin adviser, Sergey Karaganov, said Russia could resort to using nuclear weapons against Germany and the UK for interfering in its negotiations with Ukraine, which may lead to the war dragging on.
He described both countries as being “obstacles to peace”, and said Moscow might lose patience if they continue to “sabotage” negotiations.
Putin’s foreign policy aide, Ushakov, also reiterated Russia’s preference for a political and diplomatic resolution to the conflict. “We remain interested in resolving the Ukrainian crisis by political and diplomatic means,” he said, adding, “However, if it does not happen, Russia will continue accomplishing its goals on the battlefield, where Russian troops have the initiative.”
While all sides acknowledge the significance of territorial concessions in the negotiations, Zelenskyy has rejected them, saying “the demands of ceding territory to Russia are unacceptable to Ukraine”.
Officials in Kyiv and its European allies criticised the plan for being “overly favourable” to Moscow.
The trilateral talks in UAE mark the first face-to-face meeting of all three parties – the two warring sides and the US – since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
