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Russia has insisted it will not end its war in Ukraine unless Kyiv makes significant territorial concessions, ahead of what could be the countries’ first three-way talks with US officials since its full-scale invasion in 2022.
Vladimir Putin told US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner that “it’s not worth expecting a long-term settlement without solving the territorial question”, a senior Kremlin official said.
The comments by Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president’s foreign policy adviser, underline how Putin has not relaxed his demands for Ukraine to withdraw from its eastern Donbas region, which he illegally annexed in 2022 but has yet to fully capture.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said that surrendering the eastern region of the Donbas is a red line and that he would only be open to pulling back his forces there if Russia did the same and the territory remained recognised as Kyiv’s.
Ushakov’s intervention comes as two days of talks between Ukrainian, Russian and US officials kick off in Abu Dhabi on Friday. It was unclear whether officials from the three countries would be in the same room.
In a voice note sent to reporters on Friday, Zelenskyy said “the issue of the Donbas is key” and that “the modalities — how the three sides see this [working out] — will be discussed in Abu Dhabi today and tomorrow”.
Ushakov said Russia would continue to fight on until all of its demands are met. These also include a wholesale rewriting of European security architecture and sweeping domestic changes in Ukraine that would move the country firmly into Russia’s orbit.
Igor Kostyukov, head of Russian military intelligence, will lead Moscow’s delegation in Abu Dhabi for the talks on Friday and Saturday.
A senior Ukrainian official involved in the negotiations said Kyiv would send its chief negotiator Rustem Umerov, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, former military intelligence chief Kyrylo Budanov, and David Arakhamia, leader of the president’s ruling party in parliament.
The official said Ukraine welcomed the trilateral talks and a chance to be in the room with the Russians and Americans together and to speak for itself in the presence of both.
“We speak their language and [can] read their facial expressions,” the official said.
Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One late Thursday, Trump said he believed that Zelenskyy and Putin both wanted to end the war. But asked whether something had changed to convince him that Putin would like to end the conflict, Trump said there had been “no changes”.
“There were times when Putin didn’t want to make a deal. Times when Zelenskyy didn’t want to make a deal. And it was like opposite times. Now I think they both want to make a deal. We’ll find out,” Trump said.
Russia would also hold parallel talks with the US on economic co-operation led by Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Kremlin’s sovereign wealth fund, Ushakov said.
Putin had given “specific instructions” to the Russian delegation after meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, he added.
Ukrainian and Russian intelligence officials met separately with US military officials in Abu Dhabi in November. The Ukrainian and Russian sides met face to face earlier last year for three rounds of talks in Istanbul. Those meetings ended without any major progress.
Putin has stalled on agreeing to a US-backed peace plan, drafted last year with significant Russian input, and indicated Moscow will reject amendments subsequently made to the plan by Ukraine and its European allies.
The Russians have been emboldened by the success of their air strikes on Ukraine’s critical infrastructure that have knocked out power, heating and water to much of Kyiv amid the harshest winter of the war.
The Russian president has nonetheless made efforts to remain in Trump’s good graces amid Washington’s volatile relationship with Ukraine and Kyiv’s European allies.
Putin and the US delegation had discussed Trump’s invitation for Russia to join his “Board of Peace” overseeing the Gaza conflict, as well as other regional issues and the US attempt to take over Greenland, Ushakov said.
The Russian president has proposed contributing $1bn towards the “Board of Peace” from Russian sovereign assets frozen in the US under western sanctions.
Putin has also offered to divert the remaining funds frozen in the US to reconstruction efforts after the war, though they amount to a fraction of the €185bn in sovereign assets that are held in Europe.
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