Ukraine seeks to speed up the negotiations with Russia by a week and involve EU representative
The Ukrainian side is attempting to bring forward the Ukraine-US-Russia negotiations planned in Abu Dhabi by at least one week. Furthermore, the Ukrainians want to involve an EU representative in the talks.
Source: article by Ukrainska Pravda: Land for peace. How Kyiv is trying to break the Russian negotiation formula
Quote from a UP source close to the negotiation team: "The Russians, by the way, do not want to seat the Europeans at the table during the first meeting. But our team will bring them along and brief them right there in Abu Dhabi in real time. The problem for the Europeans is that they do not have a designated representative, which means all these envoys can only work in signal-receiving mode. They have no mandate to decide anything at all."
Details: A new round of trilateral negotiations between Ukraine, the US and Russia is planned to take place in Abu Dhabi following the US congressional midterm elections, tentatively starting from 10 November.
UP reports that Kyiv, together with Washington, is currently trying to convince the Russians to agree to meet at least one week earlier.
A UP source in Zelenskyy's team explained that "in December, every week will be important. When you have no power, water or heating, every single day plays a role".
As of the evening of 25 October, final confirmation of a date change from Moscow had not yet been received.
Kyiv does not expect the first meeting to yield a breakthrough. On the contrary, bringing about substantive agreements will require at least several rounds.
A UP source from the President's Office added that the Russians still believe they "will be able to break us this winter".
Quote from a member of Zelenskyy's team who has already participated in such negotiations: "We have a feeling that there will be updates to the composition of the groups. Therefore, at the first meeting, the new delegations will get used to each other. At the second, substantive work will begin. And somewhere around the third, there may already be some real decisions."
The Ukrainian side also proposes not to discuss initially which village goes to whom but rather to pose the question: what will peace look like after the end of the war?
Quote from a UP source close to the negotiation team: "We need to present a picture of how this part of the world will look, how Ukraine will be protected, what cooperation with NATO will look like or whatever else will be there. In Ukraine trust in Trump is only 6% higher than trust in Putin. Nobody here is going to do anything purely on Trump's assurances."
The Ukrainian side is persistently attempting to involve European partners in these negotiations, despite opposition from Russia and often the US.
UP sources in Zelenskyy's diplomatic team maintain that Kushner and Witkoff passed on to Putin the idea of discussing a new security model and he allegedly even agreed to do so.
Furthermore, over the last two meetings, an EU representative has finally roughly emerged: Björn Seibert, Head of Cabinet and closest aide to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Additionally, according to a UP source, Davyd Arakhamiia, leader of the Servant of the People parliamentary faction, told the Americans that the final peace configuration must be such that residents of Kharkiv and Dnipro can agree to it: "After Donbas, they are next, and if the residents of these regions look at our 'peace formula' and say, 'Okay, this suits us,' then that will truly be a work in progress."
Background:
- According to US government sources, the next round of talks between US, Ukrainian and Russian delegations could take place in Abu Dhabi or Switzerland.
- Meanwhile, Yuri Ushakov, an aide to the Russian leader, claims that Russia is ready to resume trilateral negotiations with the US and Ukraine regarding ending the Russia-Ukraine war after 4 November.
- Zelenskyy said that Ukraine will not agree to limits on the size of its Armed Forces or to neutral status as part of any potential peace deal.
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