Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed talks were being launched on Friday in Abu Dhabi, where his negotiators are to engage on the question of territory in the country's war with Russia.
The US-brokered trilateral talks are scheduled to take place in the UAE through Friday and Saturday. With the conflict set to grind into a fifth year next month, Kyiv and Moscow have come under intense pressure from the US to secure a peace deal.
Moscow has set its negotiating line as a demand that Ukraine give up the entire eastern area of Donbas before the fighting stops. A top aide to Vladimir Putin said on Friday, after talks between the Russian President and US envoys, that there was no hope of sealing a deal to end the war until the disagreements over territory were resolved.
Mr Zelenskyy has also said the issue of the Donbas region would be central to the engagement. After meeting US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr Zelenskyy said at a round-table event with the media that those consultations had been positive. "The question of Donbas is key," he said. "It will be discussed how the three sides ... see this in Abu Dhabi today and tomorrow."
The Donbas issue is a major sticking point as the area is heavily fortified and has good defensive points that Russia will struggle to take without high cost, experts have told The National.
“The Ukrainians are still willing to fight for it and it's unlikely for the Russians to take militarily,” said Natia Seskuria, an analyst at the Rusi think tank in London. “I just simply don't see how Ukrainians would agree to giving it up, because it would also create a huge threat for future escalations, leaving the way open to Kyiv.”
She also dampened the idea that there might be a limited ceasefire, with both sides agreeing not to attack each other’s infrastructure. “Russia thinks a ceasefire would eventually give Ukraine an upper hand to regain its forces,” Ms Seskuria added.
She said the Kremlin wants to show Mr Trump “willingness” to enter talks to avoid any escalation from the US in terms of providing Ukraine with more weapons.
But the Abu Dhabi summit was seen as a “notable development” in that it was the first trilateral meeting since the start of the war, said Karan Vassil, an analyst at intelligence company Sibylline.
Rather than a peace deal there was a “slightly higher prospect” of a moratorium on air and missile strikes on civilian and energy infrastructure.
But because Russia believes the constant pressure of power cuts on Ukraine’s population during a freezing winter is “undermining its fighting capabilities”, so a moratorium “remains unlikely”, Mr Vassil said.
Because Moscow believes it has “the upper hand” on the front line, he added, the Kremlin’s view is that a ceasefire “would allow Ukraine to reorganise and be more prepared to counter Russia's future offensive”.
Mr Putin on Thursday held late-night talks with US envoy Steve Witkoff and Mr Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, on the latest peace plan for ending Russia’s war on Ukraine.
There is “no hope of achieving a long-term settlement” until Moscow’s demands for territory in Ukraine are accepted, Mr Putin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, said earlier on Friday. He characterised the almost four-hour negotiations in the Kremlin as “exceptionally substantive, constructive".
Separately, Mr Witkoff and Mr Putin’s envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, are to discuss Russia-US economic matters in Abu Dhabi, officials said.
