Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
Shuttle diplomacy that bounced between Kyiv, Oslo and St. Petersburg over the fall has a new address and a hard date on the calendar.
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said on Monday that the United States will mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11.
It is the first time this fall that a direct date and venue have been pinned down for the three-party channel President Donald Trump has been trying to open. Writing in a post on X, Witkoff said the agenda will cover “post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts, and next steps toward peace.”
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Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, is expected to join Witkoff on the US side, Kyiv Post reported, citing Reuters.
The United Arab Emirates has hosted earlier rounds. Two sets of US-Russia-Ukraine meetings took place in Abu Dhabi in January and February, with another in Geneva in February, before the channel went quiet for most of the year.
Brussels meeting lines up Europe’s role
Before next week’s Abu Dhabi session, Witkoff said US negotiators will meet with counterparts from France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the European Union and NATO in Brussels later this week.
Those meetings, as reported by The Tribune, will focus on security guarantees for Ukraine, Europe’s post-war security architecture and economic opportunities to support Ukraine’s reconstruction. The sequencing puts allied positions on the table before the US sits down with the Russian delegation.
Oslo and St. Petersburg laid the groundwork
The November round builds on a month of separate meetings. Witkoff saw Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Oslo in October, then met Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on October 21, according to Kyiv Post.
Zelensky and Putin have not held direct talks since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The Kremlin has so far rejected a ceasefire, while Kyiv has called for a halt along the current front line.
A key sticking point remains how firmly Washington can guarantee Ukraine’s security. Zelensky wants congressional authorization for any US commitments rather than political assurances alone, Kyiv Post reported.
