The peace talks are restarting. The shooting, however, never stopped. After a nine-month layoff, U.S.-brokered negotiations between Russia and Ukraine restart this week in Abu Dhabi.
The New York Times reports that Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will run the American side, with an agenda built around postwar security guarantees, de-escalation, and humanitarian issues.
Patriot Missile Interceptor Test. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
Patriot Missile Launch. Image Credit: Creative Commons.
However, the one item most Ukrainians care about is missing.
A cease-fire isn’t on the table.
According to the Times, the idea is to step back from the endless argument over territory and talk about the broader European security picture.
The experts it cites don’t expect a breakthrough until spring at the earliest, because Moscow has shown zero interest in a cease-fire and hasn’t softened a single demand.
Look at the weekend before the delegations even landed. Russia launched 317 long-range attack drones at Ukraine in one night, 105 of them jet-powered.
Days earlier, a Russian strike flattened a village aid center in Zaporizhzhia Oblast, killing dozens sheltering inside. Ukraine answered by setting Russia’s second-largest oil refinery at Kirishi ablaze.
That’s the situation facing the negotiators in Abu Dhabi.
Who’s At The Table
The lineups say a lot. Al Jazeera reports that Rustem Umerov leads Kyiv’s team, joined by David Arakhamia, Kyrylo Budanov, and Sergiy Kyslytsya. Moscow is sending Vladimir Medinsky, the former culture minister, along with diplomat Mikhail Galuzin, military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov, and General Yuri Zhygarlovsky.
Medinsky led Russia’s negotiating team in Istanbul.
He’s a history lecturer by temperament, and Kyiv has heard his lectures before.
Then there’s Europe. French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said officials from France, Britain, Germany, NATO, and the European Commission would be in Abu Dhabi to join the Americans’ effort.
The Kremlin, however, said no.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov quipped that the Europeans could buy plane tickets if they wanted, but nobody planned to invite them.
It points to what many critics see as Moscow’s unseriousness, as the very people whose security is on the agenda may end up waiting in the hotel lobby.
The three earlier rounds this year, two in Abu Dhabi and one in Geneva, weren’t entirely worthless.
They produced a 314-man prisoner exchange and a restored U.S.-Russia military hotline.
Last week, a short U.S.-brokered truce let aid into Russian-occupied Oleshky and let residents evacuate. None of that, however, is peace. It’s simply housekeeping.
Land And Guarantees Are The Whole Ballgame
Strip away the diplomatic language and two issues remain.
They’re the same two issues that sank every earlier round.
The first is territory. Russia occupies roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea, and Moscow still demands that Kyiv pull its troops out of the rest of Donetsk, land the Russian army hasn’t been able to take after four and a half years of meatgrinding assaults.
“The Donbas issue is a key issue” for the talks, Ukrainian President Zelenskyy told journalists on Friday.
“Russia’s position is known: that Ukraine and the Ukrainian armed forces must leave the Donbas region,” Putin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said.
Ukraine has offered to freeze the fighting along the current front lines. The Kremlin’s position hasn’t moved. Ushakov said back in January that without a territorial solution there would be no lasting peace.
The second is security guarantees. Zelensky wants something modeled on NATO’s Article 5, a clear commitment from Western allies about what happens if Russia invades again. Moscow rejects Western troops in Ukraine, wants limits on Ukraine’s military, and wants Kyiv out of NATO for good.
However, a new wrinkle has emerged. Russia now wants its own guarantees, and Zelensky has acknowledged for the first time that those must be addressed.
As Modern Diplomacy points out, Ukraine can’t give those guarantees by itself. They’re promises about force posture in Poland and the Baltics, missile basing, and NATO’s northern flank.
In other words, Abu Dhabi could become a negotiation about Europe’s defenses without Europe in the room. Kushner has said publicly that NATO stays central and no country gets a veto over another’s alliances. Whether or not he sticks to that line is debatable.
So Is Peace Possible?
Eventually, yes. This week, no.
Every analyst Al Jazeera spoke with ruled out a peace accord from Abu Dhabi. Hudson Institute’s Matthew Boyse summed up the Kremlin’s approach well: “Putin thinks he can win at the negotiation table what he cannot win on the battlefield.”
Former U.S. Ambassador William Taylor told RFE/RL the real breakthrough would be simple. Putin says yes to a cease-fire. He hasn’t, and a cease-fire isn’t even on this week’s agenda.
What is realistic? Kyiv-Mohyla Academy’s Olexiy Haran pointed to technical items: another prisoner swap, grain shipments, a Black Sea truce, maybe an energy cease-fire.
Russia won’t agree to an energy cease-fire, as the war against Ukrainian civilians is central to their strategy.
Russia believes that its persistent bombardment of Ukrainian power grids and energy infrastructure inflicts a far more crippling, existential humanitarian and economic toll on Ukraine heading into winter.
Russia has ignored President Trump’s so-called energy ceasefire, and after two weeks, Ukraine has also rejoined the targeting of Russian oil and gas refineries.
Washington politics cut both ways.
After the midterm losses, Trump may lean harder into foreign policy for his last two years, and analysts expect that to mean more pressure on Kyiv to concede.
The U.S. also agreed last month to buy Russian diesel, money that flows straight into Moscow’s war chest. A possible Trump, Xi, and Putin meeting at the APEC summit in Shenzhen on November 18-19 may be where the real decisions get made, not in Abu Dhabi.
Putin Insists Russia Is Winning And Won’t Give An Inch
Putin negotiates the same way he fights.
He demands the maximum, escalates, and waits for the other side to blink.
He’ll keep doing that as long as he believes time is on his side.
That’s why Ukraine’s leverage matters more than any communique. Ukrainian drones have knocked out 15 Russian refineries, Rosneft is rationing gasoline across Siberia, and Ukraine’s General Staff reports Russia just suffered a record day of losses.
That pressure, and not a conference room in the Gulf, is what eventually brings Putin to a real deal. The worst outcome would be Washington insisting that Ukraine cede that pressure and territory in exchange for a handshake.
About the Author: Steve Balestrieri
Steve Balestrieri is a National Security Columnist. He served as a US Army Special Forces NCO and Warrant Officer. In addition to writing on defense, he covers the NFL for PatsFans.com and is a member of the Pro Football Writers of America (PFWA). His work was regularly featured in many military publications.
