In a post on X, Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said the participants — including special envoy Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Army Secretary Gen. Daniel Driscoll, Supreme Allied Commander in Europe Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, and White House senior adviser Josh Gruenbaum for the US— discussed charting a path toward ending the deadliest European conflict since World War II.
“The meeting focused on the parameters for ending Russia’s war and the further logic of the negotiation process aimed at advancing toward a dignified and lasting peace,” he said.
Representing Ukraine in Abu Dhabi were Umerov, Ukrainian parliament majority leader David Arakhamia, chief of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s office Kyrylo Budanov, as well as Budanov’s deputy, Sergiy Kyslytsya.
“These aspects: Buffer zones, various control mechanisms, are discussed at the meeting along with other important topics,” an unidentified source told Russia’s state-run TASS news.
Additional talks are expected to be held on Saturday, Umerov added.
Zelensky said he has been receiving hourly updates from his team in the United Arab Emirates and Ukraine’s “positions are clear,” but that it’s “too early” to interpret how the discussions are going.
“The key is that Russia must be ready to end the war it started,” the Ukrainian leader wrote on X.
“[I]t is still too early to draw conclusions,” Zelensky continued. “We will see how the conversation develops tomorrow and what results it produces.
“It is necessary that not only Ukraine has the desire to end the war and achieve full security, but that a similar desire somehow emerges in Russia as well.”
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On Thursday, Witkoff indicated that negotiations are down to “one issue,” without elaborating.
“[W]e have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it’s solvable,” Witkoff said at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.What do you think?
The stumbling block appears to control over land in Ukraine’s eastern industrial heartland.Putin is reportedly demanding Ukraine surrender the remaining 20% of territory – about 2,000 square miles of land – it holds in the Donetsk province of the Donbas, according to Reuters.
Zelensky has insisted that the region become a demilitarized free economic zone, which would preclude Ukraine from regonizing the territory as Russian.
