KYIV/MOSCOW: Ukrainian and Russian delegations met in Abu Dhabi on Friday for U.S.-brokered talks focused on the most contentious issue of the nearly four-year war: territory. The discussions showed no sign of breakthrough, even as intensified Russian airstrikes plunged Ukraine into its worst energy crisis of the conflict.
Kyiv faces growing pressure from Washington to explore a negotiated settlement to the war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moscow, however, has made clear that any ceasefire would require Ukraine to relinquish the entirety of the eastern Donbas region, a demand Kyiv firmly rejects.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said territorial control was central to the trilateral talks involving Ukrainian, Russian and U.S. officials, which are set to conclude on Saturday. “The most important thing is that Russia must be ready to end this war, which it started,” Zelenskiy said, adding that he remains in constant contact with Ukraine’s negotiating team but that it was too early to assess the outcome.
Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council and head of the delegation, said the talks focused on the parameters for ending the war and on shaping the next phase of the negotiation process.
The Abu Dhabi meeting follows Zelenskiy’s encounter with U.S. President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos earlier this week. Zelenskiy said an agreement on U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine is ready and is awaiting only Trump’s confirmation of a time and venue for signing. Kyiv has insisted on firm Western security commitments as a condition for any peace deal, fearing Russia could regroup and attack again.
The negotiations are taking place amid a sharp escalation in Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Power outages and heating disruptions have affected major cities, including Kyiv, as winter temperatures plunge. Maxim Timchenko, head of Ukraine’s largest private energy producer, warned WNN that the situation is approaching a “humanitarian catastrophe” and said a ceasefire must include a halt to attacks on power facilities.
Ukraine’s energy minister said the power grid endured its most difficult day since a mass blackout in November 2022, when Russia launched sustained attacks on energy targets. While Moscow says it prefers a diplomatic solution, it has stated it will continue military operations until its objectives are met.
One of the central obstacles remains Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the remaining 20% of the Donetsk region it still controls around 5,000 square kilometres. Zelenskiy has repeatedly ruled out territorial concessions, noting that Russia has failed to seize these areas despite years of intense fighting. Ukrainian opinion polls also show little public support for ceding land.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Friday that Russia’s insistence on Ukraine yielding all of Donbas is “a very important condition.” A source close to the Kremlin said Moscow is promoting what it calls an “Anchorage formula,” which Russia claims was discussed between Trump and Putin at a summit in Alaska last year. Under that proposal, Russia would gain control of all of Donbas while front lines elsewhere in eastern and southern Ukraine would be frozen.
Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed to have annexed in 2022 following referendums dismissed by Kyiv and Western governments as illegitimate. The vast majority of countries continue to recognise Donetsk as part of Ukraine.
Russia has also floated using a large portion of nearly $5 billion in Russian assets frozen in the United States to fund reconstruction in territories it occupies in Ukraine. Kyiv, supported by European allies, insists that Russia must instead pay reparations for the damage caused by the war. Zelenskiy dismissed Moscow’s proposal as “nonsense.”
Zelenskiy said in Davos that the Abu Dhabi talks mark the first formal trilateral meetings between Ukrainian and Russian representatives, mediated by the United States, since the war began. Last year, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met face-to-face for the first time since 2022 during talks in Istanbul, and senior intelligence officials from both sides also held discussions with U.S. representatives in Abu Dhabi in November.
Whether the current talks can narrow the gap on territory and security guarantees remains uncertain, but both sides appear entrenched, with battlefield realities and political red lines continuing to constrain any path toward a negotiated settlement.
-Heinrich Nickel
