ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — After a nine-month lull, Russian and Ukrainian delegations have begun two-day, U.S.-brokered talks, as U.S. officials say they are looking for ways to find “a final end to the war.”
The talks, the parties’ first direct negotiations since February, are expected to include a broad discussion of European security, after President Donald Trump’s envoy and son-in-law Jared Kushner proposed a new multilateral European security architecture involving Russia and European nations, modeled on the defunct NATO-Russia Council.
The Trump administration believes that the only way to reach a deal to end the war in Ukraine is to simultaneously make a broader agreement with Russia about Europe’s future security arrangements, U.S. officials said Monday, a move observers described as a risky nod to a key Russian goal of having a greater say in Europe’s security.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has long portrayed the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a necessary response to what he claimed were threats to Russian security by NATO’s eastward expansion. A few months before the war, Russia put out a list of ultimatums, including prohibiting any new countries from joining NATO, and the removal of all NATO military infrastructure installed in Eastern European countries post-1997.
The Kremlin, when asked to comment about Kushner’s proposal, said it “will not discuss publicly” any specific models. But Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Tuesday praised the broader approach: “This is the main difference between the current administration and the Biden administration, which, as I said, arrogantly refused even to discuss collective security guarantees — and there was no dialogue whatsoever.”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said late Monday that any postwar security guarantees for Ukraine would need to be acceptable to Russia, or no lasting settlement of the conflict could be reached.
Asked whether Washington was considering NATO-style security guarantees for Ukraine, Rubio told reporters: “I think concepts have been discussed about what security guarantees could look like post-conflict. And the reason why that topic remains in the headlines is because I think it’ll be key to ultimately being able to end the war, … an understanding that Ukraine will feel secure after the war.”
“And obviously, it has to be something that Russia agrees to as well in order for it to work.”
Europe’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, said on the eve of the talks that she is skeptical they will bring any substantive push toward peace.
“I don’t have very high expectations regarding these talks, because we haven’t seen really any signs from Russia that they are willing to negotiate in good faith,” she said.
The Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi, now numbering 11 people, has been upgraded in recent days to include deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, as well as senior military officials including Igor Kostyukov, who has served as director of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence agency, and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, deputy chief of the General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate. The group is led by Vladimir Medinsky, former culture minister.
Across the table sit Rustem Umerov, head of the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service, and Kyrylo Budanov, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, among other Ukrainian officials.
European officials, worried that the United States will discuss their security over their heads, have sent a team of senior officials to Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates capital. Umerov said that Ukrainian delegation met with Kushner and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and the European representatives ahead of the talks with the Russians.
“We are aligning our positions and coordinating our steps in preparation for the next phase of negotiations,” he said. “Our key priorities are to end hostilities, secure reliable postwar security guarantees, ensure Ukraine’s economic recovery and development, and advance humanitarian efforts.”
A face-to-face meeting of European officials with the Russian delegation, which has never happened in the context of the peace talks, is unlikely.
“The Americans have their own channels of communication with the Europeans, as do the Ukrainians. It appears they are establishing their own coordination mechanism,” Peskov said at a briefing on Monday, stressing that the negotiations in Abu Dhabi will involve only Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
Calls to let Europe into the negotiations have grown louder in recent weeks, and Witkoff stopped in Oslo to meet Norwegian and Finnish counterparts ahead of his latest trip to Moscow in October.
The leaders of Finland and Norway have also held a joint call with Putin, a rare instance of direct contact between the Russian president and European leaders, but neither side suggested the call had moved the needle on ending the war.
Ukraine has recently been alarmed by what appears to be Trump’s shift in favor of Russia. Hoping to ease the pressure of a global surge in fuel prices, Trump has lifted sanctions on Russian diesel exports, and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian negotiator and Putin’s business envoy, said further economic engagement with Washington is in the works.
Russia has also been displaying “a pointedly friendly attitude toward the U.S. in contrast to the stance toward Europe,” said Vladimir Pastukhov, a Russian political scientist. “Moscow is demonstratively expressing sympathy for Trump while ignoring the Democrats,” he said of the defeat the Republican Party suffered in the midterms. He said that the upgraded Russian delegation to Abu Dhabi was evidence that “Moscow is signaling its readiness to continue the tango with Trump.”
The offer of business deals alone was not enough to persuade Moscow to shift its position on Ukraine, said Tatiana Stanovaya, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center. “Of course this is interesting, but it has nothing to do with the huge stakes surrounding Ukraine and the future of Ukraine,” she said, adding that Moscow’s demands that Ukraine stay out of NATO, significantly reduce its armed forces and bar foreign troops from its territory were far more important to the Russian leadership.
The Trump administration’s move to include European security in efforts to reach a deal over Ukraine is viewed by Moscow as “a step towards peace,” Stanovaya said. “But it’s another matter that it’s a very small step, and the road ahead is very long and complicated with a lot of obstacles.”
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