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Zelensky says negotiations will focus on status of eastern Donbas region as search for elusive agreement on territory continues
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Landmark three-way peace talks have begun between Ukraine, Russia and the US, the first such talks since the war erupted in February 2022.
The talks being held in Abu Dhabi on Friday come as the three countries continue searching for an elusive agreement on territory, with the Kremlin earlier in the day making clear its “very important condition” that Kyiv give up the Donbas.
Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters the talks will focus on the eastern Donbas, which includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions that are largely – but not entirely – occupied by Russia.
The negotiations are “scheduled to continue over two days, as part of ongoing efforts to promote dialogue and identify political solutions to the crisis”, the UAE’s foreign ministry said.
Both Moscow and Kyiv have said the talks will be attended by military intelligence officials. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to mediate.
The Ukrainian president said he hoped the talks would prove to be a “step towards ending the war”. But the negotiations come after he berated European leaders on Thursday, demanding material action against Russian aggression, in a fiery Davos speech that suggested he does not believe an imminent resolution is likely.
For the first time ever, Russia, Ukraine and the US will get around the table together for a trilateral meeting to discuss peace on Friday.
The historic talks will take place in Abu Dhabi and come hours after a “frank” and “constructive” late-night discussion between US special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and President Vladimir Putin.
The parties are seeking to narrow gaps in a peace plan proposed by Washington that was initially criticised as pro-Russian.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has demanded respect for Ukraine’s territorial integrity, freedom to advance its Nato ambitions and EU membership aspirations and to maintain a large military to deter the threat of future Russian aggression.
Maira Butt reports:
The head of Ukraine’s national security and defence council has said today’s meeting “focused on the parameters for ending Russia’s war”.
Rustem Umerov, who is a member of the Ukrainian team at the peace talks, said in a post on X this evening: “The meeting focused on the parameters for ending Russia’s war and the further logic of the negotiation process aimed at advancing toward a dignified and lasting peace. Additional meetings are scheduled for tomorrow.”
In his evening address to the nation late Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky said the Ukrainian delegation attending the talks reported to him “almost every hour”.
“They are discussing the parameters for ending the war,” he said. “By now, our team should already have at least some answers from Russia. The key is that Russia must be ready to end the war it started.”
He added that “it’s too early to draw conclusions about the content of today’s negotiations – we’ll see how the conversation goes tomorrow and what the results will be. It’s not just about Ukraine’s desire to end this war and achieve full security – it’s also about Russia somehow developing a similar desire”.
Ukrainian and Russian negotiators, have concluded their talks in Abu Dhabi for today (Friday). They are set to continue discussions on Saturday for a final day to tackle the important issue of territory.
The talks were brokered by the US, as US president Donald Trump mounts pressure on Ukraine to reach a peace deal in the war, triggered by Russia’s full scale invasion in February 2022.
Showing no signs of compromise, Russian airstrikes have recently intensified in crippling Ukraine’s energy system, cutting power and heating to major cities like Kyiv during the harsh winter temperatures. This has plunged the country into its worst energy crisis of the four-year war.
So far, Ukraine has resisted Russia’s demand to cede the Donetsk region. Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Moscow said in 2022 it was annexing after referendums, which have been rejected by Kyiv and Western nations as bogus.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said territorial dispute would be a key issue at the talks in the United Arab Emirates on Friday, which are scheduled to conclude on Saturday.
“The most important thing is that Russia should be ready to end this war, which it started,” Zelensky said in a statement on the Telegram app, adding he was in regular communication with the Ukrainian delegation but it was too early to draw conclusions from Friday’s talks.
“We’ll see how the conversation goes tomorrow and what the outcome will be.”
The UAE’s foreign ministry said the talks commenced on Friday and are scheduled to continue over two days “as part of ongoing efforts to promote dialogue and identify political solutions to the crisis”.
Volodymyr Zelensky said the future of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region will be a key focus as negotiators from all three nations hold talks for the first time since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago.
Representatives from Russia and Ukraine have already met several times on separate occasions, but this is believed to be the first time US envoys will be there too – a significant step in that President Donald Trump has been pressing for a halt to the war.
The talks are an outgrowth of recent diplomatic activity, even though Russia has kept up its attacks on Ukraine and its energy infrastructure, leaving parts of the country without power amid a bitterly cold winter.
President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Trump on Thursday behind closed doors for about an hour at the World Economic Forum in Davos, describing it as a “productive and meaningful” session. Trump said later that it had gone well and that both Russia and Ukraine were “making concessions” to try to end the war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin met US envoys Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in overnight talks at the Kremlin that lasted nearly four hours.
A spokesman for Zelensky said there are “many different formats in these talks – sometimes participants step aside for separate discussions, sometimes everyone meets together, sometimes several groups break off by topic”.
In the middle of Ukraine’s fiercest winter of the war, many Ukrainians are unable to prepare hot meals or are unable to heat their homes while temperatures have dipped as low as -20C in the past few weeks. Harsher weather is forecast.
Russia has once again targeted Ukraine with sustained attacks on power stations, energy grids and heating nodes affecting electricity, as well as heating systems and water pumps.
Following the Russian strikes on January 20, around 5,600 apartment buildings in Kyiv were left without heating and almost half of Kyiv was believed to be without heat and power, affecting around one million people. The situation is so dire that the city has set up “heating tents” to help people stay warm in the freezing temperatures. Other cities have also been attacked.
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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is part of Trump’s team holding three-way negotiations in the United Arab Emirates on Friday on ending the Russia-Ukraine war, a US official says.
Special envoy Steve Witkoff asked Driscoll to attend given his experience serving in and leading the Army, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive diplomatic process.
Driscoll was previously tapped to help with such talks last November during a preplanned trip to Ukraine meant to discuss drone warfare.
He met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and joined Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Witkoff and other top negotiators in Geneva for more talks before traveling to Abu Dhabi to negotiate with the Russians on that previous trip.The U.S. official didn’t have a sense of how long this latest round of negotiating was expected to last. The development was reported earlier by Politico and Fox News.
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