Ukraine peace talks resume in Abu Dhabi as both sides show some flexibility over Donetsk

Senior officials from Moscow, Kyiv and Washington are meeting in Abu Dhabi for trilateral talks aimed at ending the war in Ukraine. It is the first trilateral meeting since February.

On the eve of the talks, US officials said Moscow and Kyiv were privately showing a little bit of flexibility on the issue of who would control Ukraine's eastern regions in a postwar scenario.

The talks come as the fifth anniversary of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine approaches. Ukraine is reeling from a deadly Russian strike on a village in Zaporizhzhia last week, in which at least 40 people were killed.

The US delegation includes Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, and peace envoy Steve Witkoff. Kushner said the talks would focus on addressing the postwar security concerns of both Russia and Ukraine. Writing on X, he said an important part of the process is encouraging all parties to begin thinking seriously about what comes after the war.

But Moscow and Kyiv's positions on ending the conflict in the first place remain far apart. The key area of disagreement involves Ukraine's eastern region of Donetsk, which is by now mostly occupied by Russia. Moscow has demanded that Ukraine relinquish the parts of Donetsk which it still holds, while Kyiv wants to freeze the contact line to maintain control over those sections, which it says are crucial to its future security.

While neither side has budged on these demands, a US official speaking on the eve of the talks said the issue would not be solved without discussions about a new security architecture. In his words, they will not solve the Donetsk issue and the territorial issue until they know what the security architecture is going to be after the war, and one cannot be finalised without the other.

For Ukraine, a post-war security architecture may include reassurance that allies will come to its aid if it is attacked again. For Russia, that could be its longstanding ambition to see NATO roll back from eastern Europe, which would be alarming to Europeans.

The framework being proposed includes security consultations and crisis communications hotlines, as well as reciprocal de-escalation measures between the two sides. The officials also floated the re-activation of the NATO-Russia Council, which has been largely paused since 2022.

The last round of trilateral talks, held in Geneva in February, ended without a breakthrough. Soon after, the US-Israel war on Iran diverted Washington's attention from Ukraine, and no other discussions were held since.

Since then, European leaders, who have been largely excluded from peace talks, have pushed to be involved in the process. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen urged on Monday that NATO allies and EU members be included in any meaningful discussions about Europe's security architecture.

President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly stated Kyiv wanted Europe to be part of the talks. The US official said the Americans would propose moving into a multilateral format bringing the Europeans into the discussion. In his words, hopefully the Russians can be brought on board, while acknowledging that the Russians have a bad taste in their mouth with the Europeans.

Since the start of his second term in office, US President Donald Trump, who once boasted he could end the war in Ukraine within a day, has spearheaded several rounds of talks to end the conflict, albeit with little success. His increasingly conciliatory approach towards Moscow has fuelled deep unease in Kyiv and across the European Union.

After meeting Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev in Washington last week, Trump touted a forthcoming big, beautiful agreement on Ukraine which might involve all of Europe. Many in Ukraine are sceptical that this would result in a fair peace.

Ukrainian MP Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the foreign affairs parliamentary committee, said he believes Trump wants a quick deal at the expense of Ukraine, which will certainly be rejected by Kyiv. He added that the only way to make Putin start real negotiations is by putting greater pressure on Russia through sanctions and deep strikes. In his words, while Putin has a war machine up and running, he has no incentives to negotiate.

Moscow's delegation in Abu Dhabi will include Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, spy chief Igor Kostyukov and army general Yury Zhigarlovsky. Kyiv is sending several senior officials who have been part of previous negotiating teams, including Foreign Intelligence Service head Rustem Umerov, Volodymyr Zelensky's chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, and MP Davyd Arakhamiya.

Away from Abu Dhabi, Russia continues to pummel Ukraine with deadly bombardments and strikes on energy infrastructure, viewed in Kyiv as proof Moscow wants to corner Ukraine into accepting a deal on Russia's terms. On Monday, Kushner was cautious to point out that the Abu Dhabi talks could at most build momentum toward the next phase of negotiations. In his words, this is an extraordinarily difficult and complicated conflict, and the US is approaching these discussions with determination and realism.