By Roula Rouhana
ABU DHABI, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reported some progress in two days of peace talks in Abu Dhabi that ended on Wednesday, but US mediators said there was a lack of trust between the warring sides and differences remained on issues including territory.
In their first peace talks for nine months, Russia and Ukraine agreed to a major release of prisoners of war, but there was little else in the way of concrete announcements after the US-brokered meetings.
US envoy Jared Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, said mediators were appealing to each side’s interests to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two and that he was convinced they could find a pathway to peace.
Despite public optimism from Trump, there has been no sign of major compromises on the main issues after more than 4-1/2 years of war since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
With talks deadlocked on land – Ukraine has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands to surrender the whole of the eastern region of Donbas in return for peace – US mediators have tried to steer talks toward post-war security guarantees and reconstruction.
“The reality is there is no trust right now between the sides and that is to be expected after a conflict like this,” Kushner said, adding that the talks in the capital of the United Arab Emirates had touched on territorial issues and that these would be the hardest to resolve.
“Some areas we see places where we can find compromises, other we need to have more discussions, but I think this was a very good step,” he said.
Kushner said he and fellow US envoy Steve Witkoff would travel to Moscow on Thursday for talks with Putin at which they would raise the question of broadening the talks to include European partners, who he said must be at the table.
He said security architecture in Europe could form the basis for an agreement, without providing details.
As the Trump administration has scaled back its direct support to Ukraine, Europe has become its leading provider of finance and military support.
After Thursday’s meetings in Moscow, Kushner and Witkoff will fly for talks with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy during a visit to Ireland.
ATTACKS CONTINUE
Each side said the other had launched attacks overnight, despite the peace talks being under way.
Russia struck six large electricity substations in central Ukraine, officials said, and an attack on a busy market in the Odesa region killed three people, the regional governor said. One person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Belgorod region, local authorities said.
Ukrainian negotiator David Arakhamia said the talks had been tough, with Russia’s delegation arriving with “strict directives”, but they provided “good momentum” towards reaching a solution before the end of the year. He gave no details.
Arakhamia said that future talks should be multilateral, not trilateral, and should include European officials. Although European officials and NATO representatives met US and Ukrainian envoys in Abu Dhabi, Russia’s delegation declined to meet them.
Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, said understanding had been reached on some issues, but was cool on the prospects of European countries joining talks.
He told a press conference it was unclear what Moscow could discuss with the European Union because it had made no new proposals. Even so, Russian state news agency TASS cited the Kremlin as saying Putin was open to contacts with the EU.
There has been no sign publicly that Putin is willing to drop a demand that Ukraine surrender all the land in the Donbas region that it still holds before a peace deal can be struck.
FRONT LINE STATIC
Russian forces control about a fifth of Ukraine, much of it captured before the 2022 invasion, and their progress on the battlefield has slowed this year.
With the front line largely static, Moscow has been pounding Ukrainian cities and energy sites, while Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure.
Russian officials are increasingly calling for a broad agreement on European security architecture to be reached before tackling the specifics of the war.
Before its full-scale invasion in February 2022, Russia demanded the withdrawal of NATO forces from countries that joined the alliance after 1997, which the alliance rejected.
Trump said last week the war was close to being settled in a “big beautiful agreement” that could include security guarantees for Europe. He has frequently predicted breakthroughs that have not materialised.
Trump has intensified pressure on Kyiv to reach a deal to end the war, or face “a very bad thing”.
The new American peace drive has galvanized European officials into pushing for a place at the talks.
European officials say wider security talks should only come after a ceasefire, and Russia should not be allowed to influence Europe’s security arrangements or rewarded for starting the war.
(Reporting by Reuters in Abu Dhabi, Moscow and Kyiv, Writing by Olena Harmash and Daniel Flynn, Editing by Timothy Heritage)
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