KYIV: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the first day of the two-day trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the US and Russia, hosted in Abu Dhabi, was “constructive and quite substantive”.
In a public statement published on X after speaking with Ukraine’s negotiating team on Tuesday (local time), the Ukrainian head of state noted that the discussions centred heavily on humanitarian concerns, such as prisoner releases, alongside robust security assurances for Kyiv. Furthermore, stakeholders addressed the pressing need for de-escalation measures, he added.
Zelenskyy said he had provided the Ukrainian negotiating team with explicit directives regarding further discussions on Wednesday, alongside upcoming broader meetings over the following days involving US presidential envoys and European representatives.
When I received the second report from our negotiating team after their meetings in Abu Dhabi, they told me that the Russians think and say they have already occupied half of Donbas, which remains under our control. These were military officers, Russian intelligence, and they were serious about it. Our team told them, “We don’t know how you can even say such things. We have video footage, images, other things proving that these areas are under our control.”
This is the problem. Putin lives in a different reality. Of course, he will be sharing with the Americans that he needs one or two months to fully occupy the east of Ukraine. I can draw a picture for him too where I fully occupy Russia. But it’s not true. What was good is that the American side confirmed the Ukrainian assessment of what is happening on the battlefield.
This is why we need to sit and speak at the level of leaders. There are a lot of questions. Like we spoke about the city of Kherson that is divided by the river today. The Russians control one bank, we control the other. But people want to live united on both banks. This is a Ukrainian city. Such issues are sensitive, but we have to speak about them. I think that tomorrow the teams will discuss the possibility of meeting at the level of leaders. I’m not sure that Russia is ready, but we will raise this topic.
From a conversation with journalists.
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 10, 2026
Earlier on Tuesday, official delegations representing Moscow, Washington and Kyiv convened in the capital of the United Arab Emirates for their first trilateral talks since February.
Prior to the commencement of the formal trilateral talks, the Ukrainian delegation conferred with representatives from Great Britain, France, Germany and Italy, as well as delegates from the European Commission and NATO. The high-level meeting also hosted American special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff.
Meanwhile, attacks continue unabated across both nations. Five non-combatants, including a civilian commuter on a public bus, were killed in Ukrainian strikes targeting the Lugansk region over the preceding 24 hours, regional leader Leonid Pasechnik said on Tuesday.
“It’s been a difficult day for our republic: five people were killed, and four more were injured,” Pasechnik said on the social media platform Telegram.
In a separate development, three staff members employed at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant were killed in Ukrainian bombardments over the past fortnight, Russian Foreign Ministry Ambassador-at-Large Rodion Miroshnik told reporters on the same day. (ANI)
