US envoys head to Moscow and Dublin as territorial dispute stays unresolved
Russia and Ukraine agreed to the largest prisoner exchange of their nearly five-year war at the first US-brokered talks since February, but the delegations made little progress toward a broader peace agreement. Senior delegations from both countries met across two days of talks in Abu Dhabi, led by Donald Trump’s envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, in an effort to find a way to end the fighting.
Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service, spoke at a briefing after the US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.
Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, said the planned exchange, expected to involve more than 1,000 prisoners from each side, would “reunite families, build trust and create momentum towards peace”.
The envoys plan to travel to Moscow on Thursday to discuss the proposals with Vladimir Putin, then head to Dublin, where they are expected to meet Volodymyr Zelenskyy and a group of European partners. “In close coordination with Ukraine and our European partners, we have aligned on proposals we will discuss with President Putin in Moscow tomorrow, followed by consultations with President Zelenskyy,” Kushner said.
David Arakhamia, a senior member of Ukraine’s delegation, said the Russian team had arrived with “very, very strict directives,” making it difficult to narrow differences. He said the talks had nonetheless produced “really big progress” on security guarantees for Ukraine after the war. “I think we have good momentum to bring about a solution before the new year,” Arakhamia said.
Kushner struck a similarly upbeat tone, saying he could see a path to an agreement. “These deals are very hard and complex, and this one is very emotional, very complex. It’s a very hot war,” he said. “But we see all the different ingredients to make a deal. We just have to figure out how to refine those ingredients, organise them and create the right structure and pathway.” He said, however, that the two sides had yet to resolve their territorial dispute.
Russia’s territorial demands have shifted over the course of the war, but Moscow has made clear it wants control of all of the Donbas, including areas still held by Kyiv, as well as the parts of two southern regions it does not yet occupy. Vladimir Medinsky, the Russian official who led Moscow’s delegation, said “every inch of our land will be returned to Russia, one way or another”. Russia would be satisfied with the negotiations only “when there is peace on its terms”, he added.
Medinsky said the main task was to create a new security system in Europe that would become “a new Yalta and Potsdam”. He argued that Europe’s postwar security system was failing, with Ukraine merely the place where its wider problems had erupted. “Essentially, the whole body is sick, and Ukraine was just a cyst that burst. The whole body must be cured. A Band-Aid won’t be enough,” Medinsky said.
That focus on Europe’s wider security order is likely to heighten concern among European leaders that Washington and Moscow could reach a broader agreement on the continent’s security, potentially limiting NATO’s military presence in eastern Europe. Moscow appears to be seeking to revive demands it presented to NATO in 2021: a halt to further enlargement that would rule out Ukraine’s membership, restrictions on NATO forces and weapons in European countries that joined after 1997, and limits on missile deployments. Western governments dismissed that ultimatum as a non-starter, and Russia invaded Ukraine weeks later.
Concerned that Europe’s security future could be discussed over their heads, European governments sent envoys to Abu Dhabi to try to influence the talks, though they are not believed to have taken part directly. Medinsky dismissed their presence, saying that if they had come “as tourists” they could talk in the hotel lobby, and that Russia would consider proposals only if they had “something specific” to offer.
European leaders have increasingly discussed the need for a direct channel to Putin, but no clear candidate has emerged. The leaders of Norway and Finland have recently spoken to the Russian president, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Wednesday that he was open to doing so. Kushner said Europe should choose a single representative to speak on its behalf. “If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiations,” he said.
Kushner said one aim of the Moscow trip was to “see if we can get Europeans added” to future talks. “The issues that were covered in these discussions were really postwar security,” he said. “How do we make sure that once this war ends, it doesn’t start again?” Russian officials have long opposed European participation, arguing that countries supplying weapons to Kyiv cannot act as impartial mediators. Medinsky said Russia would speak to European countries only “when their conscience awakens” and they stop supplying Ukraine with weapons.
The diplomacy continued alongside active fighting. Russia launched drones at Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions during the day, while Ukraine struck the Ust-Luga port on Russia’s Baltic coast overnight. The port, in the Leningrad region, is a major route for Russian energy exports and was still burning on Wednesday.