US opens Abu Dhabi talks on ending the Russia-Ukraine war

Officials describe possible Ukraine guarantees resembling NATO Article 5

US negotiators opened trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, with administration officials saying they would seek a “final end” to the war. The talks are the first substantive negotiations between the two countries since February, and they open the discussion of a proposed “long-term security architecture between Russia and Europe.”

Donald Trump with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House in July. Photograph: President of Ukraine/APA Images/Shutterstock.

A US administration official previewing the discussions said the US would “need Europe at the table” to end the war. The official said negotiators could also revive the NATO-Russia Council, suspended after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and potentially lift sanctions against Russia to get to a deal.

US officials said they had discussed with Russia potential security guarantees for Ukraine similar to NATO’s Article 5, which protects member states in case of an attack. Russia has strongly opposed NATO admitting Ukraine or western countries placing troops in Ukraine.

“What they would be getting would be effectively very similar to Nato,” an administration official said. “Getting a US security guarantee is a really, really big deal,” the official added, saying it would be up to Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy to discuss. “And if he wants to do that, that’s that’s a very, very big deal in terms of resources, funding and military support.”

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a lead US negotiator, described a potential new framework in general terms on Monday, saying the US would seek “stronger consultation, reliable crisis communications, greater military transparency, and reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, while fully respecting the sovereignty and independent decision-making of every nation.” European delegations from Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy and the European Union will meet US negotiators in Abu Dhabi to discuss the “long-term security architecture between Russia and Europe in order to figure out how to reduce future conflicts.”

Another US administration official said the existing architecture had not prevented the long war:

“We have to build something new that works today… Because if all the old architecture was working well, then we wouldn’t be in this long war. And so obviously something’s not working, and we need to come up with a way that when we end this war, it really is a final end to the war.”

European officials are concerned that Russia may stick to its hardline demands that NATO should roll back its military footprint across eastern Europe, which would threaten to leave allies vulnerable to Moscow’s influence. A European security official from a country attending the talks said the US proposal was not yet clear and that they were bracing themselves for the US to pose serious concessions to Russia during the Abu Dhabi consultations.

“We already have a European security architecture in place,” Kaja Kallas, the European Union’s top diplomat, said at a G7 foreign ministers meeting on Monday. “This includes international agreements under which Russia has undertaken obligations, including with regard to sovereignty and territorial integrity. The problem is that Russia is not respecting these agreements.”

Critics have expressed skepticism about what may trigger those security guarantees, noting that Article 5 does not oblige NATO member states to defend others and that cyberattacks and other forms of hybrid warfare have blurred the line for what would require a military response.

Context: elections, Iran and Russia’s earlier demands

The talks are the first since the US launched joint strikes with Israel against Iran, and they follow midterm elections that weakened Donald Trump at home.

Donald Trump has said Ukraine would likely be expected to give up territory in a final deal, and that the war would end with a “little bit different shape.” Last week, after meeting Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev, Trump said he would seek a “big, beautiful agreement” that “might involve all of Europe.” Critics are concerned that Trump and Vladimir Putin could try to go over the heads of European leaders to negotiate a peace that gives serious concessions to Russia.

The Guardian reported that since his first decade in power, Vladimir Putin has complained about NATO’s eastward expansion and sought to renegotiate the balance of power between NATO and Russia. The Guardian said those demands had never before been embraced by a sitting US administration, which “has made it clear that it is desperate to get to a deal.”

A US administration official pointed specifically to Russia’s 2021 proposal, which The Guardian reported “was viewed as an ultimatum to Nato to get out of eastern Europe,” saying, “There’s a lot of baggage that people in Europe have about this idea.” In 2021, Russia issued a list of demands to NATO that included a ban on expansion to new countries, including Ukraine; a rollback of troops to its pre-1997 borders; and limits on where it could place missiles. NATO rejected the proposal, and Russia invaded Ukraine less than a month later.

The content of the US proposals remains unclear. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Monday that “there’s been some advances made in what that architecture should look,” while adding, “We obviously have to get past the conflict to get to that point.”