Photo credit: AFP via Getty Images
After a pause of almost nine months, Moscow, Kyiv and Washington are resuming negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. The meeting will take place in Abu Dhabi on November 10–11, and one of its main topics should be the security of all of Europe. European governments are also sending their representatives to the UAE, but they are not yet welcome at the negotiating table.
What do they plan to discuss at the negotiations?
Before the start of the negotiations, the authorities of Russia, Ukraine and the United States made it clear that security issues would be discussed first of all, affecting not only Moscow and Kyiv, but also the whole of Europe.
A few days before the negotiations, Donald Trump met in Washington with the special representative of the Russian President Kirill Dmitriev. After the conversation, Trump expressed confidence that a “big, beautiful agreement” would soon be reached. His son-in-law Jared Kushner clarified: we are talking about a new European security architecture and security guarantees for Ukraine and Russia. Washington intends to discuss these proposals, including in Abu Dhabi.
Russian authorities have confirmed that they plan to discuss security guarantees in the UAE. “The very agenda of the negotiations in Abu Dhabi includes the first item on the security of Russia, Ukraine and overall security in this region,” said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. “We only welcome this approach.”
Back in early November, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky named other topics as Kyiv’s main priorities: a possible freeze in fighting and an energy truce, de-escalation in the Black Sea, humanitarian exchanges and organizing a meeting at the level of leaders. Later, he clarified that Kyiv is ready to talk about security guarantees, but primarily those that relate to Ukraine itself, and not the whole of Europe.
According to the New York Times, Russia, Ukraine and the United States will not discuss a ceasefire at the negotiations. The Kremlin has said more than once in the past that Moscow is not interested in pauses in hostilities until a full agreement to end the war is signed. Since the beginning of autumn, Trump has twice stated that, through his mediation, Moscow and Kyiv allegedly agreed on an “energy truce” - that is, a refusal to mutually attack the energy infrastructure. It never came.
Kushner said before the meeting that in addition to a plan to end the war and security issues, the parties intend to discuss the future economic development of Ukraine and humanitarian measures “aimed at alleviating suffering and overcoming the dire consequences of war for people.”
Who's going to Abu Dhabi?
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There will be no radical changes in the composition of the participants in the trilateral negotiations. Negotiations on behalf of the United States will be conducted by Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff and the US President's son-in-law Jared Kushner. In the weeks leading up to the meeting, they visited Russia and Ukraine and held talks with European allies.
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The Ukrainian team at the negotiations will be led by the head of the Foreign Intelligence Service, Rustem Umerov. It will also include the head of the Servant of the People party faction David Arakhamia, the head of the Presidential Office Kirill Budanov, his deputy Sergei Kislitsa and the deputy head of military intelligence Vadim Skibitsky.
The Russian delegation will again be headed by Russian Presidential Assistant Vladimir Medinsky. He will go to Abu Dhabi with a large team, it will include two deputy heads of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs - Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, as well as representatives of two departments of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces - Igor Kostyukov and Yuri Zhigarlovsky.
Among these negotiators, only Ryabkov had not previously participated in contacts in a trilateral format. His appearance in the delegation may be explained by the agenda of the meeting in Abu Dhabi. In 2021, it was Ryabkov who coordinated negotiations on the security demands that Russia put forward to the West shortly before its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Then Moscow, in the form of an ultimatum, demanded that Washington abandon NATO’s expansion to the east and withdraw all armed forces and infrastructure from the territory of countries that joined the alliance after 1997. Ryabkov, being a participant in these negotiations, said in an interview that NATO needs to “gather its money.”
The White House then agreed to discuss some issues, such as arms control, but rejected the Kremlin’s most stringent demands.
Why do Europeans go to Abu Dhabi?
According to the Financial Times, the new US proposals took the Europeans by surprise. They send their representatives to Abu Dhabi so that discussions on the continent's security do not take place without their participation.
“In recent weeks, the Europeans have asserted themselves, they have made it clear to the American mediator that no discussion concerning the future of the continent can ignore our expectations and demands,” French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrault said on the eve of the meeting. “France will defend the position of Europe, which is primarily affected by this issue.”
According to Euronews and Le Monde, national security advisers from Great Britain, Germany and France will arrive in Abu Dhabi. Representatives from Italy are also expected. NATO will be represented by the chief of staff of the alliance's Secretary General, Geoffrey van Leeuwen, the European Commission will be represented by the head of staff of its chairman, Björn Seibert, and the European Council will be represented by the adviser to its chairman, Anna-Maria Bura.
This is the first time that negotiations are taking place with such broad participation of Europeans. But they will not be present at the meeting itself, Russian and Ukrainian authorities said.
“We will hold separate coordination meetings with European partners,” explained the head of the Ukrainian delegation, Umerov. “As defined by President Vladimir Zelensky, we are doing everything to ensure that Europe is a participant in the diplomatic process.”
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Press Secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov emphasized that the negotiations will be “tripartite”. “As for the presence of Europeans, you know that Americans have their own channels of communication with Europeans, Ukrainians with Europeans, and they are apparently already building their own coordination mechanism,” he explained.
Russian authorities have consistently opposed European participation in negotiations to end the war, explaining that Brussels is providing financial and military assistance to the Ukrainian authorities. Since 2026, the topic of possible negotiations with Russia has been discussed in Europe several times, while European leaders have not yet agreed on who could represent them in direct dialogue with Russia.
At the end of October, Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre spoke with Vladimir Putin by phone. Not everyone liked this: Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen criticized her colleagues for this step. Politico wrote that the call led to "the most serious rift" between the Nordic countries since Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Before the start of negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the Kremlin stated that sooner or later Europe’s participation in the peace process will be required. “When there is talk about mutual security of Russia and Ukraine, then, of course, it will be impossible to do this without Europeans at some stage,” admitted Dmitry Peskov.
How does the new round of negotiations differ from the previous one?
The last time the parties met in a trilateral format was in the winter of 2026. In January and February, delegations met in Abu Dhabi and Geneva. Then the negotiations were conducted mainly on the basis of the so-called “Witkoff plan” - a document that Donald Trump’s special envoy prepared in the fall of 2025.
One of the drafts of this document—originally it had 28 points—was published by Verkhovna Rada deputy Alexei Goncharenko. It followed that the Americans were ready, among other things, to recognize “de facto Russian Crimea, Lugansk and Donetsk”, to exclude Ukraine from joining NATO, to seek the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the territories of Donbass and to limit their numbers, as well as to discuss global security issues in Europe and the reintegration of Russia into world politics and economics.
But, as two interlocutors close to the negotiation process told the BBC, by the start of the negotiations, items related to global security issues were removed from the agenda. This reduced Moscow's interest in the diplomatic process.
As a result, in Geneva and Abu Dhabi, the parties focused on discussing technical issues related to a possible ceasefire and the political conditions for ending the war. One of the main topics then was the fate of the Donbass territories that Russia was trying to seize. American negotiators also proposed turning them “into a free economic zone,” but the parties did not reach a compromise. Shortly after the February meeting in Geneva, negotiations were effectively frozen.
It is unclear whether the parties plan to talk about territories in Abu Dhabi. Ahead of the meeting, in an interview with CBS, Donald Trump said that the war would soon end, but that Ukraine would have a “slightly different shape” after it. What exactly the US President meant by this is unclear. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said ahead of the talks that ending the conflict would require "tough decisions." From whose side, Kushner did not specify.
Photo by Kremlin.ru
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called the transfer of all Donbass territories under Russian control a condition for the end of the war and said that Moscow will achieve this in any case - if not diplomatically, then militarily. Ukrainian authorities have consistently stated that they intend to continue to defend their own territories from Russian aggression.
Negotiations in Abu Dhabi will take place shortly after the crisis in relations between Kyiv and Washington. In early autumn, Trump demanded that Ukraine stop attacks on Russian oil refineries, saying that it was they, and not the war in Iran, that led to an increase in fuel prices on the American market. In addition, the United States threatened the Ukrainian authorities with a complete stop to the transfer of intelligence data and blocking purchases of American weapons.
Then the American president announced first a diesel deal with Russia, and then an easing of sanctions - a decision that was criticized not only by Vladimir Zelensky and his European allies, but even by some Trump party members in the United States.
* The Russian authorities included Elizaveta Focht in the register of “foreign agents”. The BBC strongly objects to this decision and is challenging it in court.
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