Overview
- Negotiators from the three countries convened Friday for a two-day security working group in Abu Dhabi, the first such meeting since the 2022 invasion.
- The session followed roughly four hours of talks in the Kremlin between Vladimir Putin and U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which Moscow called substantive without signaling a breakthrough.
- Russia named GRU chief Admiral Igor Kostyukov to lead its team, while Ukraine dispatched top officials Rustem Umerov and Kyrylo Budanov, with additional military representatives participating.
- U.S. mediators say negotiations are down to one issue, widely understood to be territorial control in Donbas, as Moscow demands Ukrainian withdrawal and Kyiv rejects ceding ground.
- The Kremlin reiterated that no long-term settlement is possible without resolving territory and that Russian operations will continue, while any pact would face Ukrainian constitutional hurdles and U.S. scrutiny for security guarantees.