Russia has named its military intelligence chief to the delegation for next week's United States-led Ukraine peace talks in Abu Dhabi, the Kremlin said on Saturday, as President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned that a new European security framework floated by President Donald Trump could be "dangerous" if it sidelines ending the war.
The two announcements, hours apart, set the tone for the most consequential round of negotiations since the war entered its fifth year: Moscow is sending its hardest-edged negotiators, while Kyiv is publicly pushing back on a Washington idea it fears could trade away Ukraine's security.
Photo: Sergey Galyonkin / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
A delegation built for hard bargaining
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency on Saturday that Russia's delegation to the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 will be led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, Reuters reported. It will also include Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, Admiral Igor Kostyukov, the chief of Russia's military intelligence agency, and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, a senior officer of the General Staff.
President Vladimir Putin met the delegation on Friday with the permanent members of Russia's Security Council to prepare for the talks, confirming they will begin on Tuesday and last two days, the state news agency TASS reported. Presidential aide Yury Ushakov also attended the meeting.
The line-up is a signal of how Moscow views the round. Medinsky led Russia's delegations in the 2022 talks in Turkey and in several phases of the US-led peace process since Trump returned to the White House, and Kostyukov previously led the Russian group in US-mediated talks in Abu Dhabi in early 2026, when negotiations focused on military logistics and prisoner exchanges. European countries will not take part, Peskov said, because the meeting is a trilateral format between Russia, the United States and Ukraine.
US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to represent Washington. Witkoff has said the agenda covers postwar security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts and steps toward a peace agreement.
Zelenskyy: end the war first
Zelenskyy, speaking to CNN on Friday, said he was not aware of all the details of a potential new security framework proposed by Trump, but cautioned that discussing a new European security arrangement without first addressing how to end the Russia-Ukraine war could be "dangerous" for the European Union.
"We support a ceasefire. We support the de-escalation," Zelenskyy said, adding that there had been no indication from Russia that it was prepared to take concrete steps towards ending the conflict.
Kyiv is seeking specific guarantees from Western allies on how postwar security support would function, Zelenskyy said. He confirmed that Ukraine, the United States and Russia are preparing working-level trilateral talks within a week, following what he described as a detailed, hour-and-a-half-long conversation with Witkoff and Kushner.
Talks open under fire
The diplomacy is unfolding against fresh fighting. Russian forces launched a large overnight missile and drone attack on Kyiv hours before the announcements, firing 172 drones and Iskander-M, Zircon, KN-23 and S-400 missiles, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Five people were injured in the capital, including a 14-year-old girl, and a residential building, a kindergarten and the city's Northern Bridge were damaged.
Zelenskyy had warned in his nightly address on Friday evening that Ukrainian intelligence had identified preparations for another wave of Russian strikes on energy facilities, bridges across the Dnipro river and civilian infrastructure.
Whether the Abu Dhabi round produces a ceasefire framework or simply another round of talks will depend on whether Moscow's hardline delegation and Kyiv's demand for concrete security guarantees can find common ground in two days. For now, both sides are arriving with their positions hardened — and their warnings already public.
Sources: Reuters; CNN; TASS; Tribune India (ANI).