Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi on Friday for US-brokered talks focused on the most contentious issue of the nearly four-year war that is territory but showed no sign of compromise, even as Russian airstrikes deepened Ukraine’s worst energy crisis since the conflict began.
The talks come as Kyiv faces growing pressure from Washington to move towards a peace agreement in a war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022. Moscow is demanding that Ukraine cede its entire eastern industrial heartland of Donbas before it will consider halting the fighting.
Territory At The Heart Of Negotiations
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the territorial question was central to the tripartite discussions involving Ukrainian, Russian and US officials, which are due to conclude on Saturday. Speaking on Telegram, Zelenskyy stressed that responsibility for ending the war lay with Moscow.
“The most important thing is that Russia should be ready to end this war, which it started,” he said, adding that he was in constant contact with Ukraine’s negotiating team but that it was too early to draw conclusions. “We’ll see how the conversation goes tomorrow and what the outcome will be.”
Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council and head of Kyiv’s delegation, said the talks addressed parameters for ending the war and outlined the “further logic of the negotiation process.”
US Pressure And Security Guarantees
The negotiations followed Zelenskiy’s meeting with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos a day earlier. Zelenskyy said on Friday that an agreement on U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine was ready, and that he was awaiting confirmation from Trump on a date and venue to sign it.
Ukraine has repeatedly sought strong security guarantees from its Western allies as part of any peace deal, fearing a renewed Russian invasion. Moscow, however, has shown little sign of easing its military objectives.
Energy Infrastructure Under Heavy Fire
The Abu Dhabi talks are unfolding against the backdrop of intensified Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. The attacks have left major cities, including Kyiv, without reliable power and heating as temperatures fall well below freezing.
Maxim Timchenko, head of Ukraine’s largest private power producer, warned that the situation was approaching a “humanitarian catastrophe.” Speaking to Reuters, he said Ukraine urgently needs a ceasefire that would halt attacks on energy facilities.
Russia maintains that it favours a diplomatic solution but says it will continue pursuing its objectives through military means if negotiations fail. A major obstacle remains President Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the roughly 20% of the Donetsk region it still controls about 5,000 square kilometres, a condition Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected.
Polls show little public support in Ukraine for territorial concessions, particularly for land Russian forces have failed to seize after years of grinding, attritional warfare. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated on Friday that Ukraine yielding all of Donbas was “a very important condition” for Moscow.
