Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
The first day of talks in Abu Dhabi reportedly showed a very different view on the reality on the ground in Ukraine.
The first day of trilateral talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States in Abu Dhabi is over, but according to Ukraine, the first day of talks showed that there is a huge gap between the two fighting nations: reality.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Russian envoys stunned Kyiv’s delegation with an astonishing boast.
As UA News reported, Moscow’s team claimed Russian troops had seized half of the Donbas territory still controlled by Ukraine. That meant broad swaths of contested land, not merely a single border village.
Zelenskyy promptly dismissed the claim as pure fantasy. Speaking with reporters, he explained that the Ukrainian side sat in disbelief because front-line positions can be verified in minutes through satellite imagery and open-source intelligence.
Even so, Russian military and intelligence officers at the table defended the claim in complete earnest. Zelenskyy saw this as proof of a darker problem. He argued that military commanders are feeding Vladimir Putin completely distorted reports about the war’s true progress.
Summing up the Russian leader’s isolated mindset, Zelenskyy emphasized, “Putin lives in a different world of information, a different reality.”
In another reality
Kyiv suspects this warped view shapes Moscow’s entire strategy with Washington.
By believing eastern Ukraine will fall within one to three months, Putin may hope to convince American mediators that a total Russian victory is inevitable. That illusion does not hold.
Spinning tales across a negotiating table cannot redraw the bloodstained battle lines in the east. Zelenskyy ridiculed the Kremlin’s bluster during his press briefing.
“I, too, could just draw a picture and claim full control over something. But that’s not true,” Zelenskyy said.
Envoys from Washington, Kyiv, and European capitals were also present at the Abu Dhabi summit to coordinate a path forward. US Special Representative Steve Witkoff reported that the trilateral talks tackled crucial security guarantees for Ukraine, NATO’s role, and Europe’s future security architecture.
Yet peace remains distant if both sides cannot even agree on the basic map.
