Abu Dhabi Talks End Without a Truce, but a Prisoner Swap Keeps Diplomacy Alive

ABU DHABI — Two days of United States-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine ended in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday without a ceasefire or any breakthrough towards ending the war, but the two sides agreed a major prisoner exchange and Washington's envoys will carry the diplomacy to Moscow within a day.

The second day lasted around two hours, far shorter than the four hours the delegations spent together on Tuesday, and ended with the two sides still divided over the sequence of steps needed to stop the fighting. Ukrainian and European representatives, along with the American envoys, then held a separate meeting after the formal talks with Russia had closed.

It was the first time the three sides had sat down together since February's stalemate. The talks resumed in Abu Dhabi this week with the United States mediating and Europe watching from the sidelines, and both Kyiv and Washington had called the first day constructive. By Wednesday evening, that optimism had produced one concrete result — and no deal on the war itself.

A prisoner exchange, but no ceasefire

The one agreement to emerge from the two days was humanitarian. The Russian delegation confirmed an agreement on a major prisoner exchange with Ukraine, and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said his negotiators had been working on a large-scale exchange, adding that American officials would travel to Russia to discuss it further.

No numbers or dates were announced. Prisoner swaps have been one of the few areas where Moscow and Kyiv have kept cooperating through nearly five years of war, and the first day of the Abu Dhabi talks was reported to have covered humanitarian issues, including possible exchanges and the return of Ukrainian civilians held in captivity, as well as children taken from the country.

Zelenskyy, who like President Vladimir Putin is not attending the talks, called the first day constructive and quite substantive. His chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, announced the start of the second day on Telegram, saying the delegations would begin in a trilateral format with the United States and Russia before Kyiv met separately with its European partners.

The sequencing dispute that blocked a deal

The central disagreement was not over whether to talk, but over what to talk about first. Ukraine has insisted that Russia must stop its military operations before negotiations can move towards a broader security framework for Europe. A Ukrainian delegation source told AFP the security architecture of the future should be discussed only once hostilities have ceased and security guarantees for Ukraine are in place.

Moscow wants the broader security questions addressed differently. The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said Russia would continue negotiations with Ukraine but indicated that it saw little reason to hold separate discussions with European representatives. He argued the conflict had exposed serious weaknesses in Europe's security arrangements and called for an entirely new and fair security system that would not come at the expense of any country.

Medinsky added that there had been no direct communication with European representatives in Abu Dhabi and that their status at the negotiations remained unclear. "The discussion will certainly continue," he told reporters, adding that Moscow had "not received a single peace initiative or a single concrete peace proposal from European countries. So it is unclear what there is to discuss."

Kyiv has warned against what it calls a "Yalta 2.0", a reference to Western leaders dividing Europe with the Soviet Union after the Second World War, and the European Union has said security arrangements can only be discussed after a ceasefire. A senior Ukrainian source told AFP Kyiv wants at least 10 years of financial support to sustain an 800,000-strong army able to defend against any future Russian attack.

Zelenskyy welcomes a shift in the American approach

Despite the absence of a breakthrough, Zelenskyy welcomed Washington's decision to involve European representatives, saying European security could not be discussed without Europe's participation. Speaking in Copenhagen, he acknowledged that getting European countries involved had not been easy but called it an important development in the American approach.

He has hailed a change in approach by the American mediators, led by Jared Kushner and envoy Steve Witkoff, though he has not said what that change amounts to. Asked about it, Zelenskyy said: "I see changes. I'm very happy with what I hear."

Kushner told delegates on Tuesday that the United States had "narrowed the gaps" between the warring sides and hoped to move towards a "solution". He said Washington hoped to "create a new framework" of security between Ukraine, Russia and Europe that would secure "decades, if not centuries, of peace". Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who had described the first day of talks as very productive, had earlier said European partners should be included in future negotiations, arguing that they would have an important role in securing a lasting settlement.

In a joint statement, the Europeans, Ukraine, the United States and Nato reaffirmed their "shared commitment to a strong post-war European security architecture". The scale of what a settlement must settle is enormous: our study of the costs of the war measured more than 450,000 Russian dead, 573 billion euros in Western aid and 18 percent of Ukrainian territory under occupation.

Washington's next move: Moscow, then Dublin

Washington is now looking to maintain momentum. American envoys are expected to travel to Moscow on Thursday for a meeting with President Putin, and are also scheduled to meet Zelenskyy in Dublin, according to Kushner.

The Moscow trip puts the American mediators in front of the leader whose decisions will determine whether the talks go anywhere. Putin has repeatedly turned down broader ceasefire offers and vowed his troops will press on, while Trump hinted before the talks that Kyiv might have to give up land, saying: "They're going to end up with a little bit different shape." Russian troops have ground westwards but have not seized the whole of the coveted Donetsk region, and Moscow demands Kyiv surrender the parts of it that it controls.

Zelenskyy has also raised the possibility of a leaders' summit. No date has been announced, and the Abu Dhabi round produced no commitment to one.

The war went on while they talked

As the talks continued, so did the fighting. Ukrainian Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said on Wednesday that Russia had pummelled "six major electrical substations" in four regions overnight, the latest strikes in a campaign against Ukraine's power grid that has repeatedly left civilians without heat and light.

In Russia's Leningrad region, governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said a Ukrainian drone barrage had sparked a fire at Ust-Luga, a key Baltic port for oil exports. Neither side reported casualties, but the attacks underlined how little the diplomacy has so far changed the reality on the ground.

Whether the prisoner exchange and the Moscow trip turn into something larger will be decided in the coming days, first in the Kremlin and then in Dublin. For now, the war that began with Russia's invasion in 2022, the worst conflict in Europe since the Second World War, continues — and the gap between the two sides in Abu Dhabi remains the gap that has defeated every earlier attempt to end it.