US special envoy, Steve Witkoff, has described the first trilateral talks comprising Russian, Ukrainian, and US officials in Abu Dhabi as “very constructive”, saying all sides will resume negotiations for the Russia-Ukraine conflict next week.
Witkoff, who led the American delegation alongside Jared Kushner (Trump’s son-in-law), posted on X: “The talks were very constructive, and plans were made to continue discussions next week in Abu Dhabi.”
“President Trump and his entire team are dedicated to bringing an end to this war,” he added. No breakthroughs were announced, but US officials described the mood as being “very upbeat” and “productive”.
The two-day trilateral talks that concluded on Saturday marked the first time that representatives from all three factions, including the two warring sides, met face-to-face since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
The Ukrainian delegation included Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Rustem Umerov; General Staff Chief Andriy Gnatov; negotiator David Arakhamia; Deputy Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiha (or Sergey Kislitsa in some reports); and Kirill Budanov, the head of military intelligence, formerly SBU.
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The Russian side was led by GRU Director General, Igor Kostyukov, along with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yury Ushakov.
The discussions followed a four-hour meeting on Thursday in Russia between Witkoff, Kushner, and Putin, which both US envoys acknowledged “went well”.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, while speaking during his daily evening address on Friday, said it was still “too early” to conclude the outcome of the talks. The Ukrainian leader also made a mention of hundreds of thousands in Kyiv being without power due to ongoing attacks on power infrastructure in Ukraine by Russia.
The Trump-initiated peace negotiations are aimed at ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict, but territorial concessions remain a sticking point for both sides.
Ushakov had reiterated before the start of the trilateral talks that Russia holds the battlefield initiative and if not given parts of eastern Ukraine, would achieve its objectives militarily.
Moscow insists that sustainable peace requires Ukraine to withdraw troops from the Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions (which held referendums to join Russia in 2022) and formally recognise Russia’s new borders, including Crimea.
Zelenskyy has firmly ruled out any territorial concessions.
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