Russia-Ukraine Peace Talks Open in Abu Dhabi — Land, Security Guarantees and a Black Sea Ceasefire on the Table

Russia and Ukraine are talking again. On Tuesday 10 November 2026, negotiators from Moscow, Kyiv and Washington sit down in Abu Dhabi for two days of US-mediated peace talks — the first meeting in this three-way format since February.

The stakes could hardly be higher. The war is now in its fifth year, Russia holds around a fifth of Ukraine’s land, and fighting has continued even as the diplomats packed their bags. Yet there is one small reason for hope this time: a US official has said that both sides are privately showing some flexibility on the hardest question of all — land.

This article explains who is at the table, what they are actually negotiating, why most experts expect no breakthrough, and what could still come out of two days in Abu Dhabi.

What is happening in Abu Dhabi?

The talks run on Tuesday and Wednesday, 10–11 November 2026, in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. They are mediated by the United States, and they bring together delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the US in the same room.

This is the fourth round of US-mediated talks this year, and the first trilateral round in nine months. The earlier rounds were held on 23–24 January and 4–5 February in Abu Dhabi, and on 17–18 February in Geneva. Those meetings produced prisoner exchanges and the return of some Ukrainian children taken to Russia, but they never came close to ending the war.

US special envoy Steve Witkoff announced the new round on 2 November. Trump has been pushing hard for a deal. Last week he struck an unusually optimistic tone, claiming the war was close to being settled and suggesting that ending it could involve all of Europe.

The timing matters. Trump is coming off heavy losses for his Republican Party in the midterm elections, and analysts say a foreign-policy success in Ukraine is now more important to him than ever. At the same time, winter is approaching, and both sides are bracing for another season of attacks on power stations and heating systems.

Who is at the table?

The American side is led by two of Trump’s closest negotiators: his special envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner. The two men have become the public face of the US mediation effort, and they are the ones who will shuttle between the Russian and Ukrainian teams.

Ukraine’s delegation is led by Rustem Umerov, the head of the country’s Foreign Intelligence Service and Kyiv’s most experienced negotiator. He is joined by Kyrylo Budanov, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office; Serhiy Kyslytsia, Budanov’s first deputy; Vadym Skibitsky, a deputy head of military intelligence; and Davyd Arakhamia, the leader of Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party in parliament.

Russia’s delegation is led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Vladimir Putin who has headed Moscow’s team in previous rounds. He is joined by another Putin aide, Yury Ushakov; deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin; Igor Kostyukov, the head of Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU; and Yury Zhigarlovsky, a senior officer from the General Staff.

The line-up tells its own story. Both sides have sent their most senior negotiators and intelligence chiefs, not junior officials. That is a sign that the talks are being taken seriously — even if nobody expects a peace deal to be signed on Wednesday.

What is actually on the agenda?

According to a report in The New York Times, carried by Interfax-Ukraine, the talks will focus on security guarantees for Ukraine and the wider question of European security. Russia’s territorial claims will not be the main focus this time.

That is a deliberate choice. Land is the issue on which the two sides are furthest apart, so the negotiators plan to start with things they might actually be able to agree on. The working agenda includes:

• An energy ceasefire. Both sides have spent months attacking each other’s power stations and energy infrastructure. A deal to stop those strikes would bring immediate relief to millions of civilians facing winter without reliable heating and electricity.
• Safe shipping in the Black Sea. The talks will cover the safety of grain shipments through the Black Sea, a corridor that matters for world food supplies as well as for Ukraine’s economy. Zelenskyy spoke to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday, and said India was ready to help mediate on the grain corridors.
• Humanitarian issues. This covers the return of prisoners of war and the return of Ukrainian children taken to Russia. Budanov, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, said significant attention would be devoted to the humanitarian track at the talks, and that prisoner exchanges need to be intensified.
• Prisoner exchanges. Past rounds of talks have delivered exchanges of prisoners, and another swap is one of the most realistic outcomes of this round.

In other words, the negotiators are aiming for practical steps that reduce the suffering of the war, rather than a grand settlement that ends it.

The land question: the issue nobody can solve yet

Sooner or later, every attempt to end this war runs into the same wall: land.

Russia occupies roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea — which Moscow annexed in 2014 in a move not recognised by the United Nations — and large parts of the eastern Donbas region. Putin has made it clear that he wants all of the Donbas under Russian control.

Ukraine’s position is the opposite. Kyiv wants Russian forces pushed back to the original border between the two countries, and it has refused to accept the loss of its territory as the price of peace.

That is why the most interesting news before the talks came from an unnamed US official, briefing reporters on Monday. According to Reuters, the official said both Russia and Ukraine were “showing some flexibility privately on the possible exchange of territory” ahead of the Abu Dhabi meeting.

The official gave no details of what that flexibility might involve, and both governments have said nothing publicly to suggest their positions have changed. But the official also said that any agreement on territory would probably only come at the very end of the negotiations, once other issues — above all, a post-war security system for Ukraine — had been agreed.

That sequencing matters. It means land is being treated as the final piece of the puzzle, not the first. The negotiators will try to build agreement on everything else first, and only then tackle the question that has defeated every previous round.

Security guarantees: what would stop Russia from coming back?

For Ukraine, the most important question in Abu Dhabi is not what happens to the land Russia already holds. It is what happens the day after a deal is signed.

Kyiv wants a guarantee that Russia will not simply regroup, rearm and attack again in a few years. That means some form of security promise from the US and Europe that would make a new Russian invasion too costly to attempt.

Reuters reported that security guarantees will be a major topic in Abu Dhabi, including the possibility of a NATO-style Article 5 defence commitment for Kyiv — the kind of promise under which an attack on one ally is treated as an attack on all.

That idea faces obvious problems. Russia has always opposed Ukraine joining NATO, and it has also opposed the deployment of foreign troops on Ukrainian soil after any deal. Moscow says it sees NATO’s expansion eastwards as a threat to its own security, and it has warned of a direct military standoff with Europe if the alliance moves closer to its borders.

Kushner has tried to reassure Ukraine’s supporters on this point. According to analysts quoted by Al Jazeera, he has explicitly said that NATO would “remain central to European collective defence and that no country should have a veto over another country’s security or alliance choices”. That is a message aimed as much at European capitals as at Kyiv.

But as Arkady Moshes, a political scientist at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs, told Al Jazeera, it is “very difficult for Ukraine to accept a peace agreement that doesn’t allow it to choose its alliances, decide on its security future, or [that] put limits on its military”.

Analysts also point to the example of South Korea, where American troops have been stationed ever since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. Ukraine would “probably need something like that”, Moshes said — but no Western country has seriously offered to guarantee the outcome of the negotiations in that way.

Where does Europe fit in?

One of the strangest features of the Abu Dhabi talks is who is not in the room: Europe.

The talks are strictly trilateral — the US, Russia and Ukraine. European officials will not take part in the main negotiations. But they will be in Abu Dhabi anyway. France has said officials from Britain, France, Germany and Italy, along with representatives of NATO and the European Commission, will be present for separate meetings on the sidelines.

Even that is disputed. On Monday, the Kremlin said the peace talks would not include European officials — a statement that appeared to conflict with what French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot had said the day before. An EU official told the AFP news agency that national security officials for the bloc, NATO, France, Germany and the United Kingdom would be on site, but it was unclear how they would be involved.

The confusion reflects a real fear in European capitals: that Trump, eager for a deal, might agree to terms that protect American interests but leave Europe less safe. That fear is sharper now because the US signed a deal last month to buy Russian diesel — a move critics say gives Moscow revenue to sustain the war.

Trump has also blamed Zelenskyy for holding up peace efforts. “Zelenskyy has to want to settle this war, and if he doesn’t, I think it’s going to be a very bad thing,” he said last month. European governments worry that the pressure in Abu Dhabi will fall mostly on Kyiv, not on Moscow.

Why most experts expect no breakthrough

The analysts who follow this war closely are almost unanimous: do not expect a peace deal from Abu Dhabi.

“I don’t expect any tangible progress in the Abu Dhabi talks. The reason is simple and remains the same — Putin has absolutely no intention to negotiate seriously. He remains totally fixated on the destruction of Ukraine,” Oleksandr Merezhko, a Ukrainian member of parliament from Zelenskyy’s Servant of the People party, told Al Jazeera.

Matthew Boyse, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington and a former US diplomat, agreed that territory and security guarantees are the hardest sticking points. “So far Putin has not budged from his ‘my way or the highway’ and ‘what’s mine is mine and what’s yours is negotiable’ position,” he told Al Jazeera.

Moshes, the Finnish political scientist, put it more bluntly: “Russia is interested in continuing the war until Ukraine is defeated.”

There is also the question of what has changed since the last round in February. The front line — about 1,200 kilometres (775 miles) long — has stayed fairly static for many months, and Ukrainian officials say Russia’s slow advance through the eastern Donetsk region has slowed further. Zelenskyy said on Monday that Ukrainian battlefield successes and mounting Russian losses were strengthening Kyiv’s position at the negotiating table.

But Russia’s commanders say their forces are still advancing on all fronts, and they dismiss any suggestion that Ukraine is making headway in recapturing territory. With both sides claiming the battlefield favours them, neither has much reason to give ground at the table.

The last time a breakthrough looked even remotely possible was in March 2022, at the very start of the war, when the two sides met in Istanbul. That effort failed, for reasons including the discovery of atrocities in Bucha, a lack of clear Western promises on security guarantees, and incompatible views on land and on Ukraine’s military future. Nothing since has come as close.

What has the war cost so far?

The human cost of the war is hard to overstate. The conflict has killed thousands of soldiers and civilians, displaced millions of people from their homes, and destroyed cities, towns and infrastructure across eastern and southern Ukraine.

The fighting has also reshaped the world economy. It disrupted grain exports from the Black Sea, pushed up food prices in countries that depend on Ukrainian wheat, and forced Europe to rethink its energy supplies and its defence spending. The war has become, as Al Jazeera puts it, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II.

That is why even a limited agreement in Abu Dhabi would matter. An energy ceasefire would mean fewer nights without power for Ukrainian families. A Black Sea shipping deal would mean cheaper grain for the countries that need it most. Another prisoner exchange would mean hundreds of families reunited. None of that ends the war — but all of it would make the war less cruel while it continues.

What happens next?

The talks are scheduled to last two days, and the first reports of what was agreed — or not agreed — should come on Wednesday evening or Thursday.

Three things are worth watching:

First, whether the two sides agree on an energy ceasefire. That is the most concrete item on the agenda, and the one with the most immediate benefit for ordinary people on both sides.

Second, whether there is any movement on security guarantees. If the US puts a serious proposal on the table — even in outline — it would be the first sign that this round is different from the ones that came before it.

Third, what Trump says next. The president has made ending this war a personal priority, and his reaction to the talks will shape what happens afterwards. If he declares progress, expect another round soon. If he blames one side or the other, expect the pressure — and the fighting — to continue.

For now, the diplomats are in the room, the war is still being fought outside it, and the gap between the two sides remains as wide as ever. Abu Dhabi is a chance to narrow it. History suggests it will take more than two days.

Frequently asked questions

When and where are the Russia-Ukraine peace talks taking place?

The talks are being held in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on 10–11 November 2026. They are mediated by the United States.

Who is leading each delegation?

The US team is led by special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Ukraine’s team is led by Rustem Umerov, head of the Foreign Intelligence Service. Russia’s team is led by Vladimir Medinsky, an aide to President Putin.

What are the talks meant to achieve?

The agenda includes security guarantees for Ukraine, an energy ceasefire, safe shipping in the Black Sea, humanitarian issues and prisoner exchanges. Russia’s territorial claims are not the main focus this time.

Is a peace deal expected?

No. Analysts quoted by Al Jazeera and Reuters are almost unanimous that no peace accord will emerge from this round. The most realistic outcomes are technical agreements — such as an energy ceasefire or another prisoner exchange.

How much of Ukraine does Russia control?

Russia occupies roughly 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea, which it annexed in 2014, and parts of the eastern Donbas region. Putin wants all of the Donbas under Russian control.

When was the last round of talks?

The last trilateral round was in February 2026, with meetings in Abu Dhabi in January and February and in Geneva on 17–18 February. The Abu Dhabi round is the first in this format in nine months.

Sources

• Reuters, “Russia and Ukraine showing flexibility on territory, US official says”, 9 November 2026: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-ukraine-showing-flexibility-territory-us-official-says-2026-11-09/
• Al Jazeera, “‘No concession’: What to expect from Russia-US-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi”, 9 November 2026: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/9/no-concession-what-to-expect-from-russia-us-ukraine-talks-in-abu-dhabi
• Reuters, “Zelenskiy says Ukrainian battlefield successes strengthen Kyiv’s position in talks”, 9 November 2026: https://www.reuters.com/world/zelenskiy-says-ukrainian-battlefield-successes-strengthen-kyivs-position-talks-2026-11-09/
• Reuters, “Europeans will join Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi, French foreign minister says”, 8 November 2026: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/europeans-will-join-ukraine-talks-abu-dhabi-french-foreign-minister-says-2026-11-08/
• Ukrainska Pravda, “Abu Dhabi trilateral talks: Ukraine’s delegation announced”, 9 November 2026: https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2026/11/09/8061971/
• Interfax-Ukraine, “Russia’s territorial claims will not be focus of talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending war in Ukraine – media”, 9 November 2026: https://en.interfax.com.ua/news/general/1233683.html

This article is for general information and education only. It is not legal or financial advice.