Ukrainian and Russian negotiators have begun a second round of United States-brokered talks in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) as they seek to advance the fraught negotiations on how to end Russia’s nearly four-year war on Ukraine,
AL Jazeera reports.
The Russian and Ukrainian delegations arrived in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday morning, according to Russian state media and a spokesperson for the Ukrainian chief negotiator. It remained unclear when the US delegation would arrive.
“Another round of negotiations has begun in Abu Dhabi,” Rustem Umerov, head of the Ukrainian delegation, wrote on social media, adding Kyiv’s team was seeking “to achieve a just and lasting peace”.
The two-day trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of violating an agreement brokered by US President Donald Trump that called for ceasing attacks on energy facilities.
A large Russian drone and missile barrage in the run-up to the talks pounded Ukraine’s energy grid, knocked out power and heating in temperatures far below freezing and threatened to overshadow any chances of progress in the Emirati capital.
“Each such Russian strike confirms that attitudes in Moscow have not changed. They continue to bet on war and the destruction of Ukraine, and they do not take diplomacy seriously,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday.
“The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly,” he said without elaborating.
“Many Ukrainians here are hoping that there will be another pause on [strikes targeting] energy infrastructure” after the second meeting in Abu Dhabi, Al Jazeera’s Audrey MacAlpine said, reporting from Kyiv.
However, given the “very little progress” that was achieved during the “first round of meetings, many here are not hopeful” that a deal will be struck with Russia, MacAlpine added.
The first round of meetings was held in the UAE last month, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv on a plan proposed by the Trump administration to end the conflict – Europe’s worst since World War II.
