Russia has named the members of its delegation for the next round of trilateral talks with the United States and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, with Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky again leading the team and the country's military intelligence chief among its members.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency on Saturday that the Russian delegation would include Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, the head of Russia's military intelligence agency, Igor Kostyukov, and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, a senior officer of the General Staff, alongside other senior diplomatic and military officials. Mr Ryabkov, a veteran diplomat who handles arms control and relations with Washington, is joining the negotiating group for the first time.
The meeting is scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 November. It will be the first such trilateral session since February, and the United States is acting as mediator between Moscow and Kyiv in an effort to end the war in Ukraine, which is now in its fifth year.
President Vladimir Putin discussed the preparations with members of the delegation at a meeting of Russia's Security Council on Friday 6 November. According to the state news agency TASS, Mr Putin told the session that the trilateral talks would open in the United Arab Emirates on Tuesday, and he invited the negotiators to discuss the issues before their departure.
Mr Medinsky, a presidential aide and former culture minister, is a veteran negotiator who led Russia's delegations in the first rounds of talks with Ukraine in 2022 in Turkey, and he has headed the Russian team in the US-mediated rounds held in Abu Dhabi earlier this year. His continued role signals that Moscow is keeping the same negotiating line it has held since the process began.
The inclusion of senior military figures is notable. Admiral Kostyukov, who heads the Main Directorate of the General Staff, known as the GRU, led the Russian group in two earlier US-mediated rounds in Abu Dhabi in early 2026, when the discussions focused on military logistics and prisoner exchanges. Mr Zhigarlovsky serves as deputy head of the Main Operations Directorate of the General Staff.
On the Ukrainian side, the delegation is expected to be led by Kyrylo Budanov, the head of the Presidential Administration, while on the American side the US media have reported that presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of President Donald Trump, will lead the delegation. The Ukrainian and American line-ups have not yet been formally announced.
According to Mr Peskov, the talks will discuss security guarantees, a central issue in any settlement. European countries will not take part, because the meeting is a trilateral format, and European governments have responded cautiously to the latest American proposal for ending the war. The agenda beyond security guarantees has not been made public.
The announcement comes at a moment of intense diplomacy around the war. The United States has been pressing both sides to agree to a framework, while fighting continues on the ground and Washington is also carrying out strikes against Iran and managing a fragile trade truce with China. Any progress in Abu Dhabi would be the first concrete step in the peace process since the last round of talks in February.
For now, the delegations are set and the dates are fixed. Whether the two days in Abu Dhabi produce a ceasefire framework, a prisoner exchange, or simply an agreement to keep talking will become clear once the negotiators sit down on Tuesday.
