Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The first US-mediated trilateral on Ukraine since February reopened in the Gulf, and the room split almost immediately over who actually holds which stretch of eastern Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the Russian delegation at the Abu Dhabi negotiations claimed Moscow controlled roughly half of the Donbas territory that Ukraine in fact still holds.
Speaking at a press conference in Denmark on November 10, 2026, Zelensky said his team pushed back with video and photographs from the contested areas.
According to Zelensky, the U.S. delegation—joined in Abu Dhabi for consultations by NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe General Alexus Grynkewich—confirmed that Ukraine’s battlefield data accurately reflected reality on the ground, rejecting Moscow’s inflated claims.
“The Russians think, they shared this, that they have occupied half of the territory of Donbas that we control. Half, not one village,” Zelensky said, according to UNN.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said Putin was pushing a false figure to Western partners, claiming that only 10 percent of the Donbas remains under Ukrainian control, UNN reported.
A nine-month pause ends in the Gulf
The November 10 session was the first trilateral meeting of Ukrainian, Russian and American negotiators since February and ran for more than four hours before carrying over to a second day, Kyiv Independent reported.
Washington was represented by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Ukraine’s team was led by Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, and included President’s Office Head Kyrylo Budanov.
The Russian side was led by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, with Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov also at the table.
Kushner told reporters President Donald Trump “has asked us to put extra effort into trying to find a solution that hopefully ends the war but also leaves both sides in a much stronger position,” The Moscow Times reported.
A credibility gap at the table
Zelensky described the Russian president as operating in a parallel information space and said Vladimir Putin had told Washington that Moscow would seize eastern Ukraine entirely within one, two or three months, a timeline Zelensky rejected as detached from the battlefield.
“Putin lives in a different world of information, a different reality,” Zelensky said, according to ua.news.
Kyiv is ready to discuss territory, he added, but only against maps that match the ground, and he called for stronger Western pressure on Moscow.
Talks resumed on November 11 in Abu Dhabi, with humanitarian steps, prisoner exchanges and broader European security arrangements still on the agenda.
