Overview
- President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced that trilateral negotiations will reconvene in Abu Dhabi on Feb. 4–5, though the United States and the Kremlin had not formally confirmed the timing.
- U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said talks in Florida with Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev were “productive and constructive,” with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Jared Kushner and White House adviser Josh Gruenbaum in attendance.
- Fresh Russian strikes killed civilians, including a drone attack on a company shuttle bus in the Dnipropetrovsk region that Ukrainian officials said left 15 dead, and a separate strike injured patients at a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia.
- A brief, U.S.-brokered pause on attacks against energy infrastructure was described as lasting until Feb. 1, with Kyiv saying it mirrored restraint even as other long-range strikes by both sides continued.
- The second round follows late-January talks in Abu Dhabi that made little headway, with negotiators citing territory—especially Russia’s demands in Donbas—as the central unresolved issue.