Ukraine seeks to bring talks with Russia forward a week and involve EU representative
Ukraine is seeking to bring forward upcoming Ukraine-US-Russia negotiations to be held in Abu Dhabi by at least one week. The Ukrainians also want to involve an EU representative in the talks.
Source: an 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 the Europeans at the table during the first meeting. But our team will bring them along and brief them 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 make any decisions."
Details: The new round of trilateral negotiations between Ukraine, the US and Russia is scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi from about 10 November onwards, after the US congressional midterm elections.
Ukrainska Pravda has learned 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: "In December, every week will be important. When you have no electricity, water or heating, every single day counts."
As of the evening of 25 October, final confirmation of the change of date from Moscow had not yet been received.
Kyiv does not expect the first meeting to result in a breakthrough. On the contrary, several rounds of talks will be needed to reach substantive agreements.
A UP source from the President's Office added that the Russians still believe they "can break us this winter".
Quote from a member of Zelenskyy's team who has experience of such negotiations: "We have a feeling that there will be changes in the members of the groups, so at the first meeting, the new delegations will be getting used to each other. The substantive work will begin at the second meeting. And sometime around the third, there may be some real decisions."
The Ukrainian approach is not to start by discussing who gets which village, but to ask the question: what will peace look like after the war is over?
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."
Ukraine has been insisting on European involvement in these negotiations, despite opposition from Russia and often the US.
UP sources in Zelenskyy's diplomatic team maintain that US Special Envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff conveyed the idea of discussing a new security model to Russian leader Vladimir Putin, who apparently agreed to a discussion.
Furthermore, over the last two meetings, a possible EU representative has finally emerged: Björn Seibert, Head of Cabinet and the closest aide to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
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 one that people in Kharkiv and Dnipro can agree to: "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 really will 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.
- Yuri Ushakov, an aide to Putin, has said that Russia is ready to resume trilateral negotiations with the US and Ukraine on ending the Russia-Ukraine war after 4 November.
- Zelenskyy has said that Ukraine will not agree to limits on the size of its Armed Forces or to neutrality as part of any potential peace deal.
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