Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States were due to meet in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday in an effort to push forward fraught talks aimed at ending the four-year war.
The Russian delegation had already arrived in the Emirati capital, according to Russian state media, although it was unclear whether the US and Ukrainian teams had also landed.
Several rounds of diplomacy have so far failed to produce a breakthrough in Europe’s deadliest conflict since the Second World War, which began when Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
A large-scale Russian drone and missile barrage in the run-up to the talks, which battered Ukraine’s energy grid and cut power and heating amid sub-zero temperatures, threatened to overshadow any prospects for progress in Abu Dhabi.
“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,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Tuesday.
“The work of our negotiating team will be adjusted accordingly,” he added, without providing further details.
The main stumbling block remains the long-term fate of territory in eastern Ukraine.
Moscow is demanding that Kyiv withdraw its forces from large parts of the Donbas, including heavily fortified cities rich in natural resources, as a precondition for any agreement. It also wants international recognition that land seized during the invasion belongs to Russia.
Kyiv has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front line and has rejected any unilateral withdrawal of troops.
The talks, scheduled for Wednesday and Thursday, were postponed from last weekend due to what the Kremlin described as scheduling issues between the three parties.
‘Prepare for the worst’
Ukraine’s delegation is being led by Security Council chief Rustem Umerov, a negotiator praised by colleagues for achieving diplomatic “wonders”.
Russia’s chief negotiator is military intelligence director Igor Kostyukov, a career naval officer who has been sanctioned by Western countries for his role in the invasion of Ukraine.
At a previous round of talks in Abu Dhabi last month, the US delegation was headed by President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff.
Russia, which currently occupies around 20 per cent of Ukraine, has warned it could seize the remainder of the Donetsk region if negotiations fail. Ukraine has countered that conceding territory would embolden Moscow and has said it will not sign any deal that does not deter future Russian aggression.
Kyiv still controls roughly one-fifth of the Donetsk region.
Russia also claims the Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as its own and occupies pockets of territory in at least three other eastern Ukrainian regions.
On the battlefield, Russian forces have continued to make incremental gains at a high human cost, betting they can outlast and overpower Ukraine’s stretched army.
On Tuesday, a Russian drone strike on the southern city of Zaporizhzhia killed three people and wounded at least 11, regional governor Ivan Fedorov said on Telegram.
Elsewhere, a 68-year-old man and a 38-year-old man were killed in a drone attack on the Dnipropetrovsk region, according to regional administration head Mykola Lukashuk.
Sergiy Lysak, head of the Odesa military administration, said more than 20 residential buildings, two kindergartens and a school were damaged in an overnight attack on the southern city. No one was killed, but two people were injured.
Hundreds of thousands of residents in Kyiv have been left without heat and electricity this year after repeated Russian strikes severely damaged the capital’s energy infrastructure.
Following the first round of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi last month, many Ukrainians expressed scepticism that any agreement could be reached with Moscow.
“I think it’s all just a show for the public,” Petro, a Kyiv resident, told AFP.
“We must prepare for the worst and hope for the best.”
