The next round of trilateral negotiations between delegations from Ukraine, the United States, and Russia may take place in Abu Dhabi or Switzerland. According to US government sources, the meeting is expected within the next couple of weeks, with its main goal being to lay the groundwork for future high-level contacts.
Diplomatic Marathon and the Search for Compromises
Ahead of the announcement regarding potential meeting venues, a series of intensive diplomatic contacts took place. On October 20, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met in Oslo with US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, and Finnish President Alexander Stubb. The very next day, the American envoy traveled to St. Petersburg, where he met with Russian leadership, including Kremlin special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, delivering a package of documents containing proposals on approaches to ending the conflict.
Positions of the Parties and Settlement Prospects
According to Axios and sources within the US administration, following a series of consultations in Oslo and St. Petersburg, the parties agreed to resume the trilateral format. The Kremlin has preliminarily targeted a meeting in the first half of November in Abu Dhabi, which aligns with earlier statements from the Ukrainian side. At the same time, Ukrainian government sources consider the likelihood of achieving an energy truce at this stage to be low, viewing the resumption of delegation work and the coordination of basic de-escalation measures as the primary success.
Time Pressure and International Context
Western media also report on Washington's potential aspiration to time the signing of a final peace agreement with the G20 summit scheduled for December in Florida. This creates strict timeframes for negotiators and points to growing external pressure aimed at accelerating the peace process, despite deep lingering disagreements between Moscow and Kyiv.
