U.S. officials are “cautiously optimistic” as peace talks between Ukraine and Russia restart in Abu Dhabi Tuesday, noting each side is showing “flexibility” on territory.
The working level discussions with the U.S., Ukraine and Russia mark the first trilateral talks since February. The goal is to “start defining how we’re going to end this war,” according to a U.S. official.
The talks come as Russia has continued to carry out missile and drone strikes against Ukrainian energy targets, and Ukraine calls for more aid for air defense, while striking Russian military targets.
President Trump said the administration is seeing “a very strong inclination to end Russia and Ukraine.”
“The public positions remain the same, which is Russia said they want to they want all Donetsk, and Ukraine is saying let's do the contact line. But both sides have shown a little bit of have shown a little bit of flexibility privately, and so we're going to start the discussion about what that can be,” said a U.S. official.
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The session of talks will include territorial issues, according to a U.S. official, and another will include ceasefire monitoring and post war security.
“This is the first time I feel like we see real desire on the Russian side to finish,” said the official. They believe to solve the “Donetsk issue” post war security architecture must also be worked on.
“We can only welcome the negotiators on U.S. President Donald Trump’s request proposing to put the issue of collective security on top of the agenda of the talks on Ukrainian settlement on,” said Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
While Europeans have pushed for a seat at the table for efforts to end the war, a U.S. official said they are proposing bringing Europe to the table after the trilateral meeting to run a parallel track of discussions on the security architecture, and will seek to get Russia to agree to a multilateral meeting.
“We do believe very strongly that at this point, in order to end the war, you really need to have Europe at the table,” the official said.
Ahead of the trilateral meetings, the U.S. is holding talks with Germany, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, NATO, the EU and Ukraine to address security guarantees and long term security plans between Russia and Europe.
“In terms of the U.S. role, again, you know, we'll see what President Trump decides. But we've asked the Russians for us to be able to give an Article Four and an Article Five-like security guarantee to Ukraine, along with NATO providing the same,” said the U.S. official.
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However, past talks have failed to yield an end to the war. Zelenskyy has suggested freezing the contact line and called for a ceasefire, while Russia has publicly not changed its position.
“So what Russia is showing is they're showing positive signs towards wanting to create an end,” the official said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said they will propose de-escalatory steps and that “there must be an understanding of how to arrange a trilateral meeting at the leaders’ level to bring this war to an end fairly and for real.”
The Ukrainians have conceded a recent humanitarian ceasefire in Oleshky shows that Russian President Vladimir Putin can stop the fighting when he wants.
Ukrainian officials believe the effort in Oleshky showed value in piloting de-escalation efforts.
“Besides Oleshky, and besides besides its humanitarian human value, there is another big value: is that we started to kind of train or pilot de-escalation efforts in case the big, you know, ceasefire will come. How to execute the ceasefire,” said Arakhamia.
Trump met with the Russian delegation, but not Ukrainians, after each side commemorated the effort at the White House with First Lady Melania Trump last week.
“Unfortunately we do have a choice,” said Davyd Arakhamia, a majority leader of the Ukrainian parliament, on copying Oleshky operations to other regions.
