The first known trilateral talks bringing Ukraine, Russia and the United States to the same table ended in Abu Dhabi on Saturday after two days of discussions, with no announced agreement but with officials signalling further meetings could follow within days.
The format itself marked a shift. Rather than acting solely as an intermediary between delegations, the Trump administration placed senior envoys alongside Ukrainian and Russian representatives in a joint setting, allowing Washington to observe and shape the negotiating process directly.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the discussions concentrated on “possible parameters for ending the war” and the security conditions required to sustain any settlement. He said there was an “understanding of the need for American monitoring and control” over the end-of-war process and “real security”.
That language left open a central question: whether Moscow would accept any monitoring regime led by the United States, and what enforcement mechanisms could accompany it. Ukrainian officials said the parties agreed to report back to their capitals on each element of the talks and to coordinate next steps with national leaders. Military representatives were also involved in identifying issues for a possible follow-up meeting, which Ukrainian and US sources suggested could take place as soon as next week, again in the United Arab Emirates.
Public statements from Kyiv and Moscow avoided detailed discussion of territory, but the dispute remained the core obstacle. Russia has repeatedly demanded that Ukraine relinquish control of areas of Donetsk still held by Ukrainian forces, while Ukraine has maintained that ending the war cannot require formal land concessions. A separate Russian proposal raised during the diplomatic push involved the potential use of frozen Russian assets held in the United States, an idea Kyiv rejected.
The talks unfolded as Russia continued large-scale strikes on Ukraine, including attacks that disrupted electricity supplies during winter conditions. Ukrainian officials said the bombardment underlined the gap between diplomatic engagement and Russia’s military conduct, with power cuts affecting large numbers of residents in Kyiv and other cities.
The overlap between diplomacy and continued attacks also sharpened scrutiny of claims circulating around the negotiations. Some reports and commentary suggested that President Vladimir Putin could be prepared to fund reconstruction in Ukraine, including repairs to energy infrastructure. No formal confirmation of reparations commitments emerged from the Abu Dhabi talks, and Western governments have generally treated any Russian contribution as dependent on legal and political leverage, including the continued freezing of assets. The European Commission has argued that international law requires the responsible state to make full reparation for damage caused by an internationally wrongful act.
The scale of reconstruction remains a major factor in the wider settlement debate. A joint assessment by the Government of Ukraine, the World Bank, the European Commission and the United Nations estimated in early 2025 that recovery and reconstruction costs could run to $524 billion over a decade, reflecting the accumulation of damage since the invasion began.
Washington’s handling of the Abu Dhabi track is also shaped by parallel priorities. Immediately after the talks, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner travelled to Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu focused on Gaza’s future and the next stage of a US-backed framework for the enclave. The trip underscored the extent to which the same senior team is being tasked with simultaneous negotiations on two conflicts, each with its own regional pressures and domestic political constraints.
For now, the Abu Dhabi meeting produced process rather than settlement: agreement to continue, competing accounts of progress, and no shared public text on ceasefire terms, territorial lines, or security guarantees. The next round, if it takes place, is expected to test whether American “monitoring and control” can be translated into concrete arrangements acceptable to both Kyiv and Moscow, and whether the United States is prepared to apply leverage if talks stall.
