{"id":197850,"date":"2026-01-23T12:38:50","date_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:38:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-ukraine-and-russia-delegations-head-to-abu-dhabi-for-their-first-trilateral-talks-of-the-war-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2026-01-23T12:38:50","modified_gmt":"2026-01-23T12:38:50","slug":"us-ukraine-and-russia-delegations-head-to-abu-dhabi-for-their-first-trilateral-talks-of-the-war-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/us-ukraine-and-russia-delegations-head-to-abu-dhabi-for-their-first-trilateral-talks-of-the-war-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"US, Ukraine and Russia delegations head to Abu Dhabi for their first trilateral talks of the war – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Moscow says prior talks with Washington \u2018useful in every respect\u2019 and repeats call for Ukraine to exit Donbas
Europe live \u2013 latest updates<\/a>
Ukraine, Russia and the US are to hold three-way talks in Abu Dhabi, the first time the three countries have sat down together since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022 \u2013 but with Russia maintaining its demands for Ukrainian territory its military does not control.
The meeting was confirmed in the early hours of Friday morning after talks at the Kremlin between the Russian president, Vladimir Putin<\/a>, the US envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The Kremlin\u2019s diplomatic adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters those talks were \u201cuseful in every respect\u201d, adding that it was \u201cagreed that the first meeting of a trilateral working group on security issues will take place today in Abu Dhabi\u201d.
As the talks were set to begin on Friday, the Kremlin repeated its demand that Kyiv must withdraw its forces from the eastern Donbas region for the war to end, showing it had not dropped its maximalist demands before the trilateral talks.
The full details of the talks in the United Arab Emirates were not released at the time of writing, and it was not clear whether Russian and Ukrainian officials would meet face to face. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a>, said the talks would last two days.
The Kremlin\u2019s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said: \u201cRussia\u2019s position is well known on the fact that Ukraine, the Ukrainian armed forces, have to leave the territory of the Donbas. They must be withdrawn from there \u2026 This is a very important condition.\u201d
Witkoff, Kushner and the US team are scheduled to meet a Russian delegation, headed by Gen Igor Kostyukov, the director of Russia\u2019s GRU military intelligence agency, in Abu Dhabi on Friday.
The Trump administration has been pushing for a peace settlement<\/a>, with representatives of the president shuttling between Kyiv and Moscow in a flurry of negotiations that some worry could force Ukraine into an unfavourable deal<\/a>. The US president said on Wednesday that Putin and Zelenskyy would be \u201cstupid\u201d if they failed to come together and get a deal done.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, Witkoff said one key issue remained to be resolved in the negotiations, without saying what it was.
Zelenskyy said the future status of land occupied by Russia in the east of the country was unresolved but peace proposals were \u201cnearly ready\u201d. Both sides have previously highlighted the issue of territory as crucial. In particular, Putin has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine surrender the 20% it still holds of the eastern region of Donetsk. Zelenskyy has refused to give up land that Ukraine has successfully defended since 2022 through grinding, costly attritional warfare.
Russia also demands that Ukraine renounce its ambition to join Nato and rejects any presence of Nato troops on Ukrainian soil after a peace deal.
Zelenskyy said from Davos: \u201cRussians have to be ready for compromises because, you know, everybody has to be ready, not only Ukraine, and this is important for us.\u201d He added that postwar security guarantees between Washington and Kyiv were ready, should a deal be reached, although they would require each country\u2019s ratification.
Zelenskyy was speaking after a closed-door meeting with the US president at Davos. Ukraine\u2019s president made a blistering Davos speech accusing European leaders of being in \u201cGreenland mode\u201d<\/a> as they waited for leadership from Trump on Ukraine and other geopolitical crises rather than taking action themselves.
Despite Trump\u2019s limited and scattershot support for Ukraine<\/a> since taking office one year ago, Zelenskyy focused instead on Europe\u2019s role in the conflict, accusing the continent\u2019s leaders of complacency and inaction.
\u201cJust last year, here in Davos, I ended my speech with the words \u2018Europe needs to know how to defend itself,\u2019\u201d Zelenskyy said. \u201cA year has passed, and nothing has changed.\u201d
Speaking to reporters as he flew back to Washington, Trump said his meeting with Zelenskyy went well, adding that the Ukrainian president had told him he wanted to make a deal to end the war.
\u201cI had a good meeting, but I\u2019ve had numerous good meetings with President Zelenskyy and it doesn\u2019t seem to happen,\u201d he said.
Trump claimed that Putin and Zelenskyy wanted to reach a deal and that \u201ceveryone\u2019s making concessions\u201d to try to end the war.
He said the sticking points in talks had remained the same over the past six or seven months, noting \u201cboundaries\u201d was a key issue. \u201cThe main hold-up is the same things that\u2019s been holding it up for the last year,\u201d he said.
Trump also said he and Zelenskyy had discussed how Ukrainians were surviving the cold winter without heat. \u201cIt\u2019s really tough for the people of Ukraine,\u201d Trump said, noting that it was \u201camazing\u201d how residents were able to persevere through the winter facing relentless Russian strikes.
Ukraine is enduring a bitter winter<\/a>, with Russian attacks on civilian infrastructure cutting power and heating to much of the capital, Kyiv, as well as other big cities.
With Reuters and Agence France-Presse<\/em><\/p>\n

source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Moscow says prior talks with Washington \u2018useful in every respect\u2019 and repeats call for Ukraine to exit DonbasEurope live \u2013 latest updatesUkraine, Russia and the US are to hold three-way talks in Abu Dhabi, the first time the three countries have sat down together since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion in 2022 \u2013 but with Russia maintaining […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":197851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-197850","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-us","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197850","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197850"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197850\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/197851"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197850"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197850"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197850"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}