Abu Dhabi hosts new US-brokered peace talks as drone war intensifies

Delegations from Russia, Ukraine, and the United States opened three-way talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, aiming to end a war that has continued since Moscow's full-scale invasion nearly five years ago. The two-day session in the capital of the United Arab Emirates is the first of its kind since February. Officials said the discussions would center on security guarantees, a point where the two warring nations remain sharply divided. Russia views NATO as a primary threat, while Ukraine seeks to prevent future invasions through firm commitments.

The path to these negotiations has been slow. Previous rounds of talks early this year failed to produce major breakthroughs. The war has already resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers and thousands of civilians, according to analysts and humanitarian groups. Fighting has not paused for the talks, with both armies largely deadlocked along the front line. New long-range strikes occurred overnight as the delegations prepared to meet.

Ukraine's air force reported that Russia launched 162 drones of various types and a ballistic missile at Ukrainian territory during the night. In response, Russia's Ministry of Defense stated that its forces shot down 155 Ukrainian drones above eight Russian regions and the Crimean Peninsula. Crimea remains a point of contention, as Russia annexed it from Ukraine in 2014.

The US team, led by President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff, worked on a negotiated solution before the main session began. Kushner posted on X that the goal was to create conditions for a sovereign, secure, and prosperous Ukraine within a more stable European security environment. The day started with a meeting between the Ukrainian team, US envoys, and representatives from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, NATO, and the European Commission.

Vladimir Medinsky, who heads the Russian delegation, noted that his team had become bigger and more professional. He expressed hope that the meeting would help advance peace for both peoples. Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service and leader of the Kyiv delegation, confirmed the initial multilateral meeting. The Russian delegation also included deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, as well as military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.

The delegations hold divergent demands that make a quick deal difficult. Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to pull troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions. Moscow annexed these four areas in September 2022 but never fully captured them. Putin also demands that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO, accept strict military limits, and drop restrictions on the Russian language and the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church. He has warned that Russia will achieve its goals by force if Kyiv refuses these conditions.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who was visiting Denmark on Tuesday, rejects the idea of voluntarily ceding territory that Russia has not taken on the battlefield. Kyiv also opposes limits on its military or its arrangements with Western partners. Ukraine argues that an immediate ceasefire is the necessary first step toward a wider settlement. It maintains that a direct meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is the only way to settle territorial issues.

Trump declared last week that a grand deal about European security was in the works, describing it as a big agreement involving more than Ukraine. Kushner said the Abu Dhabi discussions would set the stage for direct engagement between Russia and European partners on broader security arrangements. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Moscow welcomes the proposal to put collective security on the agenda. Before the three-way talks began, Kushner and Witkoff met separately with envoys from Ukraine, the EU, NATO, and key European nations to coordinate on postwar security.