Overview
- The trilateral talks began Tuesday in Abu Dhabi with U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff mediating between Russia’s lead negotiator Vladimir Medinski and Ukraine’s Rustem Umerov.
- The central agenda is security guarantees and the shape of a postwar European security architecture that Washington says will require separate engagement with European partners.
- Moscow insists the process remain strictly trilateral and rejects direct European presence in the negotiating room, and Kyiv held separate coordination meetings with EU and NATO officials in Abu Dhabi.
- Fighting continued as the talks opened, with Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian refineries reported in the hours around the session.
- A deal would affect more than borders: it could change troop deployments, energy flows and daily life in Ukraine this winter, and would require hard choices about NATO ties and long-term guarantees for Kyiv.