Russia and Ukraine will finally return to the negotiating table Tuesday for their first trilateral peace talks with the U.S. in nine months.
Ahead of the talks, officials said both Moscow and Kyiv have shown “a little bit of flexibility privately” on territorial disputes that have long stood in the way of reaching an agreement.
U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff will sit down with Ukrainian intelligence chief Rustem Umerov and Putin aide and veteran negotiator Vladimir Medinsky in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday and Wednesday.
The Trump administration has asked Russia to accept an “Article Four and an Article Five-like security guarantee” for Ukraine that would be “effectively very similar to NATO,” a U.S. official said Monday on a background call previewing the negotiations.
President Donald Trump has not yet decided what security guarantee the U.S. itself would provide, the official said, describing an American guarantee as a “really, really big deal” that would ultimately have to be worked out between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
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A lot has happened on the geopolitical stage since the latest trilateral talks happened in Geneva, Switzerland, in February. The first being the inception of a new conflict between the U.S. and Iran — and the second being the 2026 midterm elections, which saw a sweeping rebuke of Republicans with a blue wave taking the country by storm.
The latest round of talks will also mark the beginning of structured negotiations over territory.
Russia continues publicly to demand all of Donetsk, while Ukraine has pushed for freezing the conflict along the current line of contact. But behind closed doors, “both sides have shown a little bit of flexibility privately,” the official said.
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Trump also suggested in a “60 Minutes” interview that aired Sunday that Ukraine’s borders could ultimately change under a peace agreement, saying the country could emerge from the war with “a little bit different shape.”
U.S. negotiators do not expect to resolve the territorial dispute in Abu Dhabi. Instead, officials say the goal is to clarify where each side stands, identify the remaining gaps and begin exploring potential compromises that can ultimately be taken back to Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskyy.
The administration increasingly views the territorial question and postwar security arrangements as inseparable.
Officials believe neither Russia nor Ukraine will make the concessions needed to settle the territorial dispute until each understands what the security landscape will look like after the fighting stops.
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Before sitting down with Russia and Ukraine, U.S. negotiators will meet with national security officials from Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Italy, along with NATO, the European Union and Ukraine, to discuss security guarantees and a broader postwar security architecture.
Washington then hopes to persuade Russia to join a broader multilateral negotiating process involving European governments.
“We need Europe at the table,” a U.S. official said, arguing that direct negotiations between Russia and European countries will ultimately be necessary for a durable settlement.
Among the ideas under consideration is reviving the NATO-Russia Council, which the administration wants to make a more robust forum for communication, de-escalation and resolving future disputes.
Officials are also exploring crisis communications, greater military transparency and reciprocal measures intended to reduce the risk of another conflict.
The administration’s goal in Abu Dhabi is not a final agreement. Officials instead hope the talks can establish a framework for more frequent negotiations and eventually move the process from a U.S.-Russia-Ukraine format to broader multilateral talks involving Europe.
The administration also sees sanctions as potential leverage in enforcing an eventual agreement. A U.S. official suggested sanctions on Russia could potentially be eased over time while retaining the ability to “spring back in place” if Moscow violates a peace deal.
Witkoff and Kushner, the son-in-law of the president, are also considering returning to meet Putin and Zelenskyy soon, depending on the outcome of the Abu Dhabi talks.
“This is the first time I feel like we see real desire on the Russian side to finish,” the official said.
But officials acknowledged the negotiations remain highly uncertain, with deep distrust between Moscow and Kyiv and major decisions on territory and security still unresolved.
The immediate test in Abu Dhabi will be whether the private flexibility U.S. negotiators say they are seeing can translate into something concrete once Russia and Ukraine are back in the same room.
But the Abu Dhabi talks could also set the stage for higher-level diplomacy.
U.S. officials said Witkoff and Kushner are considering returning to meet Putin and Zelenskyy soon, depending on the outcome of the two-day negotiations.
Trump is also preparing to travel to China for the APEC summit next week, where he said Sunday he expects to meet Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Discussions about a potential three-way meeting are underway, though no summit has been finalized.
