For the first time since February, Russian, Ukrainian and US negotiators are scheduled to hold talks on ending the full-scale war that is nearing the five-year mark, with security guarantees topping the agenda.
The two-day session starting Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, follows previous rounds of negotiations early this year that failed to produce any visible progress toward ending Europe’s most devastating conflict since World War II.
The negotiations follow last month’s localised truce around the Russian-occupied city of Oleshky in southern Ukraine that was brokered with the help of US first lady Melania Trump and allowed the evacuation of some of its residents and the delivery of desperately needed humanitarian supplies.
But even as Moscow and Kyiv touted the weeklong ceasefire as a positive model, fierce fighting has continued along the 1,200-kilometre (about 750-mile) front line. Both sides also have escalated their long-range attacks on each other with drones and missiles.
Russia and Ukraine remain far apart on key elements of any prospective peace deal.
Russian President Vladimir Putin wants Ukraine to pull its troops back from the four regions that Moscow illegally annexed early in the war but never fully captured. He also demands that Ukraine abandon its bid to join NATO, accept strict limits on its military and drop restrictions on the Russian language and the Moscow-affiliated Orthodox Church in Ukraine.
Putin wants a comprehensive peace deal on those conditions and won’t agree to a general halt in hostilities, arguing that such a pause would only allow Ukrainian troops to rest and replenish their weapons stockpiles.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy rejects Putin’s demands to voluntarily cede Ukrainian territory Russia has not been able to take on the battlefield and agree to limits on the military and arrangements with Western partners, which it sees as essential security guarantees to stop Russia’s military operation again in the future.
Ukraine argues that an immediate ceasefire is the first step toward negotiating a wider settlement and says a direct meeting between Putin and Zelenskyy is the only way territorial issues can be settled.
