US joins new round of talks with Ukraine and Russia, but Ukrainians skeptical of any major breakthrough

Kiev— Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, confirmed on Wednesday that a new round of trilateral peace talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States had begun in Abu Dhabi. The sides met for the first time in the Emirates capital in late January, kicking off the first three-way negotiations since Russia launched its large scale invasion of Ukraine almost four years ago.

U.S. officials called the first round “the most constructive of the war” and appear to have led to the recent “energy truce,” in which both sides halted attacks on each other’s energy infrastructure for four days.

But any momentum that the first round of talks may have generated in January appeared to have dissipated by the start of the second meeting.

Russia loudly broke the brief truce between Monday night and Tuesday morning, launching 450 drones and more than 60 missiles into Ukraine, according to Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, who said the attacks had left 1,170 apartment buildings in kyiv without heat.

Representatives of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, told News themezone that the strikes were “one of the worst attacks” on the country’s energy infrastructure of the entire war.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called the attacks proof that Russian leaders “do not take diplomacy seriously.”

“These attacks did not surprise anyone. This is what Russia does,” Yuriy Sak, an adviser to Ukraine’s Ministry of Strategic Industries, told News themezone. “On the one hand, they keep saying they are interested in peace. On the other hand, they destroy our infrastructure, bomb our people and people are left without heat during these freezing months.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said before the negotiations in Abu Dhabi that Russian forces were “attacking targets that they believe are associated with the military complex of the kyiv regime, and the operation continues.”

NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, who visited kyiv shortly after this week’s attacks, said in a social media post that he had visited “a civilian heating plant” hit by Russian missiles on Tuesday. “They have no military value: the attacks have the sole objective of making people suffer.”

What to expect from today’s trilateral talks

Two major sticking points have long hampered President Trump’s efforts to bring Russia and Ukraine to a peace deal: Russian demands that Ukraine formally cede territory Russia has occupied in the eastern Donbas region, and Ukrainian demands for credible guarantees from Western powers of protection if Russia tries to attack again after a ceasefire is reached.

zelenksyy made it clear at the end of last year that the issue of territorial concessions remained the biggest obstacle in the talks. It is unlikely to be resolved during this round of negotiations, according to Ukrainian Foreign Ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhyi, who told reporters at the start of the talks that “the most delicate and complex issues, such as territorial issues,” will be left for the countries’ heads of state to discuss.

But progress could be made on other issues, including how security guarantees for Ukraine would work once a hypothetical ceasefire takes effect.

Ukraine and Russia have again sent delegations led by key military figures. The Ukrainian team includes Kyrylo Budanov, the former military intelligence chief who now serves as Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, while the Russian delegation is led by Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU military intelligence service.

These are the same negotiators who met in Abu Dhabi in late January, which Sak, the Ukrainian adviser, said could help keep things moving, at least on the technical aspects of a peace deal.

“When military meets military, they can progress, they speak the same language,” he said. “Concrete measures and steps within security guarantees: the military on both sides are well positioned to discuss.”

“I personally remain slightly skeptical of any solid outcome, but at the same time, I am surrounded by people here in Ukraine who believe that some real outcome could be possible soon,” Sak said. “When the time comes and the leaders meet, the nuances and details will be worked out and hopefully we can reach a compromise that is fair to Ukraine and fair to the world.”