DAVOS — President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine, the United States and Russia are due to hold talks in the United Arab Emirates on Friday and Saturday, in what he described as the first meeting of that format.
Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos shortly after meeting US President Donald Trump, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian and American negotiators had been in contact ahead of the leaders’ discussion, and that the next step would be US contacts in Moscow. He told delegates that the American team would travel to Moscow, after which his team would meet the Americans in the Emirates for the trilateral talks.
Zelenskyy said it was “good” to begin holding such meetings at a tactical level. He added that Russia “must be ready for compromises”, and that readiness was required from all sides, not only Ukraine.
Reuters reported that Trump, after the meeting in Davos, said he had held “good” talks with Zelenskyy and that his message to Russian leader Vladimir Putin was that the war “has to end”. Trump told reporters that US envoys were heading to talks in Moscow and indicated he expected to meet Putin.
According to Reuters, the US envoy for Ukraine, Steve Witkoff, said he would travel to Moscow with Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, for talks with Putin, and that negotiators would then go directly to Abu Dhabi for further discussions, including military-to-military talks and what he called a “prosperity package”.
The Davos meeting came after weeks of US-led diplomacy aimed at shaping a settlement framework. Reuters said Zelenskyy had previously indicated he would only travel to Davos if he could sign agreements with Trump on US security guarantees and post-war reconstruction funding, though no announcement of signed documents followed the leaders’ discussion.
Trump described the encounter as “very good”. He also said the meeting did not address the possibility of Ukraine joining the “Board of Peace” initiative he is establishing.
The Board of Peace has been a prominent feature of Trump’s Davos agenda. It has been presented by the White House as an international mechanism intended to support conflict resolution, but it has not attracted participation from several traditional US European allies.
The trilateral format is not new in principle, but it has not been routine during the war. Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne reported in December 2025 that the United States had proposed a three-way meeting between representatives of Ukraine, the US and Russia, with Zelenskyy describing it then as potentially useful if it could unlock practical outcomes, including prisoner exchanges.
In Davos, Zelenskyy framed the planned UAE talks as an initial step focused on working-level engagement, while stressing that broader political decisions would depend on results. His comments suggested Kyiv would judge the process by tangible outcomes rather than formal declarations.
The announcement comes against the backdrop of continued fighting and pressure on Ukraine’s domestic infrastructure. Russian strikes have contributed to an energy crisis in Ukraine, with parts of Kyiv and other regions affected by disruptions to power and heating, while attacks continued on Thursday across multiple areas, including Odesa and Kryvyi Rih.
For Washington, the UAE meetings would extend a sequence of contacts spanning Kyiv, Florida, Davos and Moscow, as Trump’s administration presses its diplomatic effort forward. For Kyiv, the stated priorities remain security guarantees and the financing of recovery, while Zelenskyy has signalled that any process must include expectations of Russian concessions rather than Ukrainian commitments alone.
