Above Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, below Kyrylo Budanov and Kirill Dmitriev
The opening of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi between Russia, the United States and Ukraine it immediately turns into a complex diplomatic duel. Despite the climate of anticipation for the start of negotiations in the United Arab Emirates, the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskovhas frozen hopes of a quick resolution by reiterating that the fundamental condition for the Russian side remains the total withdrawal of the Ukrainian armed forces from Donbass. A clear position that arrives just as the delegations begin to discuss a double track, military and economic, to try to find a way out of the conflict.
Zelensky’s “step forward” and the crux of the conversation with Trump
Moscow’s statements come a few hours after the opening signals launched by Volodymyr Zelensky. The Ukrainian leader, fresh from an intense confrontation with the US president Donald Trump in Davos, he described the start of the Abu Dhabi summit as a necessary “step towards the end of the war”. In a voice message sent to the international media, Zelensky underlined the importance of not standing still, defining the Donbass issue as the focal point of the trilateral discussion and hoping for a constructive discussion on the different visions of the parties involved.
The structure of the negotiations and the delegations in the field
The rigidity of the Russian position is also confirmed by the composition of the delegation sent to Abu Dhabi. Peskov has in fact announced that the working group responsible for safety is made up exclusively of senior representatives of the Ministry of Defensea signal that Moscow intends to negotiate the terms of the ceasefire on a purely military basis. At the same time, a second group led by the envoy Kirill Dmitriev he will deal with economic dossiers, interfacing with his US counterpart Steve Witkoff. This splitting of the negotiating tables suggests a negotiation which, although complex, aims to touch on every aspect of future regional stability.
Prospects and uncertainties of the summit in the Emirates
The negotiations, which will continue throughout today and potentially tomorrow too, remain hanging on the difficult balance between Moscow’s requests and Kiev’s desire not to cede strategic territories. If on the one hand Zelensky sees in the dialogue an opportunity to break the war stalemate, on the other hand Peskov’s line confirms that for the Russian Federation there cannot be an agreement without a substantial modification of the structures on the field in Donbass. The Abu Dhabi summit therefore confirms itself as a crucial test for international diplomacy, suspended between the hope of concrete progress and the intransigence of the stakes set by the Kremlin.