Russia, Ukraine, US set for peace talks

ABU DHABI

Firefighters walk at the site of a destroyed warehouse after a Russian drone attack in Sofiivska Borshchahivka, on the outskirts of Kyiv, Ukraine, Thursday, Nov. 5, 2026. (AP Photo)

For the first time since February, Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. negotiators are scheduled to hold talks on ending the full-scale war that is nearing the five-year mark, with security guarantees topping the agenda.

The two-day session starting on Nov. 10 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, follows previous rounds of negotiations early this year that failed to produce any visible progress toward ending Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II.

The negotiations follow last month’s localized truce around the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine.

But even as Moscow and Kiev touted the weeklong ceasefire as a positive model, fierce fighting has continued along the 1,200-kilometer front line. Both sides also have escalated their long-range attacks on each other with drones and missiles.

Russia and Ukraine have sharply divergent demands as they remain far apart on key elements of any prospective peace deal.

Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to pull its troops back from the four regions that Moscow illegally annexed early in the war but never fully captured. He also demands that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO, accept strict limits on its military and drop restrictions on the Russian language and the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church in Ukraine.

Putin wants a comprehensive peace deal on those conditions and won’t agree to a general halt in hostilities, arguing that such a pause would only allow Ukrainian troops to rest and replenish their weapons stockpiles.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky rejects Putin’s demands to voluntarily cede Ukrainian territory Russia has not been able to take on the battlefield and agree to limits on the military and arrangements with Western partners, which it sees as essential security guarantees to stop Russia invading again in the future.

Ukraine argues that an immediate ceasefire is the first step toward negotiating a wider settlement and says a direct meeting between Putin and Zelensky is the only way territorial issues can be settled.

Russia and Ukraine said the Abu Dhabi talks will focus on security guarantees.

Zelensky noted that Ukraine and its allies have discussed security guarantees similar to NATO’s Article 5, which states the alliance sees an attack on one of its members as an attack against all.

Some European nations have mulled a possible deployment of their troops to Ukraine after a prospective peace deal. Russia rejects that as a nonstarter, warning it would view any European troops on Ukrainian soil as legitimate targets.

The Kremlin insists that any prospective deal should offer security guarantees for Russia as well. Just before Moscow launched the all-out invasion in 2022, it demanded that NATO roll back its deployments of troops and weapons from the alliance’s members in Central and Eastern Europe, seeing their presence as a security threat. Similar demands will likely be part of any comprehensive peace deal put forth by Russia.

U.S. President Donald Trump said after meeting Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House on Nov. 4 that some kind of grand deal about European security was in the works, although he did not elaborate.

“It’s going to be a big agreement and it’s going to involve more than Ukraine,” Trump said, adding that it might include all of Europe.