The United States will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on November 10 and 11 in Abu Dhabi, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff announced on Monday, reviving a diplomatic track that stalled earlier this year.
"The United States will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia on November 10-11 in Abu Dhabi, advancing President Trump's mission to end the war," Witkoff wrote on X. He said discussions would focus on post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts and next steps toward peace. Witkoff and Jared Kushner will lead the U.S. delegation.
The agenda is largely technical. It is expected to cover a potential energy and maritime ceasefire, prisoner exchanges and the return of Ukrainian children taken by Russia, alongside the broader questions of security guarantees and a long-term peace framework. The meetings are set at official level, not between the presidents, though Moscow has separately said it is ready for talks between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky, and Kyiv hopes such discussions could lead to a formal summit.
Russia confirmed on Tuesday that it will attend, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to Putin, will head the Russian delegation. Abu Dhabi is a familiar venue for the talks: it hosted trilateral meetings among the U.S., Ukraine and Russia on January 23-24 and February 4-5, the first publicly acknowledged meetings of the three since the war escalated in 2022.
Separately, U.S. negotiators will meet this week in Brussels with representatives from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO to discuss security guarantees for Ukraine, Europe's post-war security architecture and economic support for reconstruction.
The announcement came as fighting continued. Russian strikes hit four power plants and two substations in Ukraine's Vinnytsia, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions overnight from November 2 to 3, and port infrastructure in Kiliya, on the Danube, was also hit as Kyiv and Moscow prepared for the talks. The gap between the sides remains wide: Moscow presses territorial demands, while Kyiv insists on a ceasefire along the current front line.
