President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says officials from Ukraine, Russia and the United States will hold trilateral meetings for the first time on Friday and Saturday as the US continues to push for an end to Russia’s war on Ukraine.
After talks with US President Donald Trump in Davos on Thursday, Zelenskyy said the terms of security guarantees for Ukraine had been finalised, and a deal was almost ready on economic recovery after the war, a key element of Kyiv-backed proposals to push back on an earlier US plan seen as heavily favouring Moscow.
Zelenskyy described the negotiations scheduled to take place in Abu Dhabi as the “first trilateral meeting” to be held among the countries. “I think this is good,” he said.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the proposed talks.
The US president described the meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart as “good”, but called the effort to end the war launched by Russia an “ongoing process”.
Earlier, US envoy Steve Witkoff said “a lot of progress” has been made in the long-running Russia-Ukraine talks and that negotiations are down to one last issue.
“I think we’ve got it down to one issue, and we have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it’s solvable,” Witkoff told an audience at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in the Swiss city of Davos on Thursday.
“If both sides want to solve this, we’re going to get it solved,” he said.
The US envoy and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, later travelled to the Russian capital, Moscow, for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The US officials would then fly on to Abu Dhabi, the UAE capital, where talks would continue in “military to military” working groups, Witkoff said.
According to Zelenskyy, the UAE talks – spanning Friday and Saturday – will include the first trilateral meetings between US, Russian and Ukrainian officials.
Trump, Zelenskyy meet in Davos
Speaking to reporters after meeting Zelenskyy, Trump said his message to Putin is that the war in Ukraine has to end.
Zelenskyy, for his part, described the meeting with Trump as “productive and substantive”.
“The documents are now even better prepared,” added Zelenskyy, who previously said he would only travel to Davos if there were the opportunity to sign an agreement with Trump on resolving the nearly four-year war, including with security guarantees and post-war reconstruction funding for Ukraine.
“This is the fourth year of the biggest war in Europe since World War II, and the man who started it is not only free, but he is fighting for his frozen money in Europe,” said Zelenskyy.
‘Keep our eyes on the ball of Ukraine’
While it was unclear what the last-remaining sticking point referenced by Witkoff was, Zelenskyy said in December that the two main issues were the long-term fate of territory captured by Russia and areas still under Kyiv’s control that Moscow is demanding, and who gets control of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, under Russian occupation in southern Ukraine.
Trump made an oft-repeated claim on Wednesday that Putin and Zelenskyy were close to a deal. “I believe they’re at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done. And if they don’t, they’re stupid – that goes for both of them,” he said after delivering a speech to the annual meeting of global elites.
The US has held talks separately with Russia, Ukraine and European leaders on various drafts of a plan for ending the war, but no deal has yet been reached despite Trump’s repeated promises to clinch one.
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte praised Trump’s efforts to end the war but said Ukraine still needs military help as it continues to come under Russian missile and drone attacks.
“What we need is to keep our eyes on the ball of Ukraine. Let’s not drop that ball. And that means, yes, great, peace talks. Fantastic. We will do everything to conclude them successfully, but that will not happen tomorrow,” he said.
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said a Russian overnight drone attack struck a residential building, killing a 17-year-old.
