Zelenskyy confirms Ukraine, Russia and US will meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11 for first three-way talks since February
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States will meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, the first direct three-way talks since February, to discuss security guarantees, an energy ceasefire and a Black Sea truce.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has confirmed that negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States will meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, in the first direct three-way talks since February. The announcement, made at a joint press conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in Berlin on Tuesday, was confirmed the same day by the Kremlin, which said a Russian delegation would attend on those dates.
The meeting is the latest step in a diplomatic track mediated by the United States. US special envoy Steve Witkoff announced the dates on Monday, saying the talks would focus on ending the conflict, post-conflict security arrangements and de-escalation. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Tuesday that the Russian delegation would arrive in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, and reports said it would be led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, who took part in earlier negotiations.
Zelenskyy set out Ukraine’s priorities for the table in Berlin. At the top of the list are security guarantees for Ukraine and a package for the country’s economic recovery. He also said Ukraine would press for a ceasefire covering energy facilities and other critical infrastructure as winter approaches, a truce in the Black Sea to guarantee food exports, and more frequent prisoner exchanges under an all-for-all format. Washington, for its part, has said it will also discuss Europe’s post-conflict security architecture and support for Ukraine’s reconstruction.
The Abu Dhabi round matters because it restores a format that has not met since February. The previous US-mediated round in Abu Dhabi ended with an agreement to exchange 314 prisoners of war, announced on February 5, 2026. Since then the three sides have talked through intermediaries and envoys, but they have not sat down together. A return to direct, three-way negotiation is itself a step, even before any agreement is reached.
Zelenskyy was clear about what he hopes the talks will lead to. He said he hoped the gathering would pave the way for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and that only direct engagement at the highest level could resolve the fundamental issues blocking a durable settlement. That framing puts Abu Dhabi in its place: not as the place where peace is signed, but as the place where the ground for a leaders’ meeting might be prepared.
Russia, meanwhile, has drawn a line around the format. Peskov said on Tuesday that the talks would follow the previously agreed trilateral format, involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States as mediator, and that European countries would not take part. That position sits alongside separate diplomatic activity involving Europe: Witkoff said US negotiators would meet European and NATO officials in Brussels on Wednesday, and Zelenskyy said teams from the United States, Europe, NATO and Ukraine would meet there to discuss reconstruction and security guarantees.
The talks are being held against a grim backdrop on the ground. Zelenskyy told reporters in Berlin that at least 33 people had been killed on Monday when Russia twice bombed a school being used for aid distribution in the village of Komyshuvakha, near the front line in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, with more than 50 people possibly trapped in the rubble. Russia also launched a large overnight barrage on November 2 and 3, with Zelenskyy reporting 289 drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles hitting power plants and substations from Odesa in the south to Rivne in the west.
Merz used the Berlin appearance to put pressure on Moscow ahead of the meeting. The German chancellor said Russia must show it is serious about a ceasefire and a peace agreement at talks in Abu Dhabi next week, and that the new round was the right step to help bring the fighting to an end. His remarks reflect a wider European concern: that talks without a change in Russian behaviour on the ground would amount to diplomacy without de-escalation.
Diplomatic activity around the talks has intensified in other channels too. The White House said on Tuesday that US First Lady Melania Trump would bring representatives of Russia and Ukraine together at the White House on Thursday, a separate initiative from the Abu Dhabi round. Taken together, the Berlin press conference, the Brussels meetings, the White House gathering and the Abu Dhabi dates suggest a concentrated American push to get all sides talking in the same week.
What Abu Dhabi can actually deliver remains uncertain. The agenda is broad — security guarantees, an energy ceasefire, a Black Sea truce, prisoner exchanges and reconstruction — and the gaps between the sides on territory, security and the future of Ukraine’s armed forces have not narrowed in public. The most realistic outcomes are therefore modest: agreement on a limited energy ceasefire, progress on prisoner exchanges, or a shared understanding that could justify a leaders’ meeting. A comprehensive peace deal in two days is not on the table, and no side has claimed otherwise.
For now, the confirmed fact is the meeting itself: three delegations, two days, one city, and a first direct conversation since February. Whether it becomes a turning point or another round that ends with statements rather than agreements will depend on what happens in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11 — and, just as much, on whether the bombing that preceded it stops while the negotiators are in the room.
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