KEY POINTS
- Ukraine said US-brokered talks with Russia in Abu Dhabi were “substantive and productive”.
- Talks will continue on Thursday, focusing on military and political issues.
- Europe has voiced concern about being sidelined.
ABU DHABI: Ukraine, Russia and the United States concluded the first day of US-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, with Kyiv describing the discussions as “substantive and productive,” as no immediate breakthrough was announced.
While there was no apparent breakthrough in the latest round of talks, the negotiations were set to carry on into a second day, Kyiv said.
The US-mediated talks are the latest in a flurry of diplomacy that has so far failed to strike a deal to halt the war between Russia and Ukraine.
Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov said the talks the first day were “substantive and productive, focused on concrete steps and practical solutions”.
As talks got underway, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday reiterated Russia’s position. “Our position is well known,” Peskov said.
“Until the Kyiv regime makes the appropriate decisions, the special military operation continues,” the Kremlin spokesperson said.
In Ukraine, foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said Kyiv was “interested in finding out what the Russians and Americans really want.”
The content of the talks was on “military and military-political issues,” he added, without elaborating.
Major disputes in talks
The main sticking point in settling the conflict is the long-term fate of territory in eastern Ukraine, AFP reported.
Moscow is demanding that Kyiv pull its troops out of swathes of the Donbas as a precondition of any deal.
Kyiv has said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected a unilateral pull-back of forces.
Trump despatched his envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner to try to corral the sides to an agreement.
Russia’s top negotiator is military intelligence director Igor Kostyukov, a career naval officer.
Europe fears it has been side-lined in the process, even as France and Britain lead efforts to put together a peacekeeping force that could be deployed to Ukraine after any deal.
It was “strategically important for Europe to at some point be part of the negotiations,” the EU’s ambassador to Ukraine Katarina Mathernova told AFP on Wednesday in Kyiv.
Russia also claims the Lugansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions as its own, and holds pockets of territory in at least three other Ukrainian regions in the east.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said Russian troops would continue fighting until Kyiv made decisions that could end the war.
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told Liga online that Russia was paying a heavy price for small territorial gains, saying, “Russia is not winning its war against Ukraine.”
The first round of talks, held in the UAE last month, marked the first direct public negotiations between Kyiv and Moscow.
Russia has warned it could take the rest of Donetsk if talks fail.
The second round of Abu Dhabi talks is scheduled to continue through Thursday.
