Ukraine, Russia begin second round of U.S.-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi

Ukraine and Russia engage in U.S.-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi, amid ongoing conflict and significant negotiation challenges.

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators began a second round of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on ‌Wednesday (February 4, 2026), seeking to advance efforts to end Europe’s biggest conflict since World War Two.

The two-day trilateral meetings come after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had exploited a U.S.-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles on Tuesday (February 3).

“Another round of negotiations has begun in Abu Dhabi. The negotiation process started in a trilateral format — Ukraine, the United States, and Russia,” Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s top negotiator, said on the Telegram app.

Mr. Umerov said that teams ⁠would also meet in separate groups to discuss specific negotiation tracks and would then follow up with a joint meeting to synchronise positions.

Over the past year, U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ⁠has pushed both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the four-year conflict, triggered by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of ‌talks with U.S. officials.

The most sensitive issues are Moscow’s demands ‌that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe’s largest, which ‍sits in a Russian-occupied area.