Abu Dhabi skyline, where working-level Ukraine-Russia talks are scheduled for November 10 and 11. Photo: Comedian44, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). File photo — not a photo of Wednesday's talks.
Ukraine, the United States and Russia are preparing to hold working-level trilateral talks within a week to negotiate an end to the war, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday after a detailed conversation with US President Donald Trump's envoys.
"We just had a very detailed, hour-and-a-half-long conversation with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. We are preparing for a trilateral format at the team level between Ukraine, the United States, and Russia — to take place in less than a week," Zelenskyy said, according to Asianet Newsable and The Independent's live coverage.
What the talks would cover
US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff had earlier announced that Washington would mediate working-level negotiations between Ukraine and Russia in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11, focusing on postwar security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts and steps towards a peace agreement. Zelenskyy also pointed to a substantive meeting in Brussels involving representatives from Ukraine, the United States, the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, NATO, the World Bank and the global business community, focused on Ukraine's postwar recovery, with another meeting scheduled in Brussels on Friday to discuss security guarantees.
The diplomatic push comes as thousands of European troops are due to take part in a military exercise in Poland this month to prepare for a hypothetical postwar mission in Ukraine, aimed at boosting the country's economy and rebuilding its armed forces, according to The Independent.
War rages on meanwhile
The engagement comes amid continued Russian attacks on Ukrainian territory. Earlier, on November 3, Zelenskyy said at least 29 people were killed and dozens injured in a massive overnight Russian attack targeting critical infrastructure across Ukraine, with Russian forces launching 289 attack drones, 17 ballistic missiles and 59 cruise missiles, primarily targeting energy infrastructure. Emergency power outages were reported across regions including Odesa, Cherkasy, Zhytomyr, Vinnytsia, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernivtsi, Chernihiv and Rivne.
Russian strikes also hit Ukrainian state-run gas facilities in the Poltava and Kharkiv regions overnight, killing three employees and two rescue workers, according to Naftogaz chief executive Serhiy Koretskyi. And the death toll from Monday's bombing of an aid distribution point in the village of Komyshuvakha, in the Zaporizhzhia region, has risen to 40, with dozens still unaccounted for.
Why this round matters
Previous rounds of talks have produced little more than prisoner exchanges and local ceasefires, and both sides have accused each other of breaching past truces. What is different this time, diplomats say, is the combination of direct US mediation at working level, parallel talks on security guarantees in Brussels, and European military planning for a postwar mission — three tracks moving at once.
Whether they converge into a deal remains an open question. Moscow has not publicly confirmed the same timetable, and the fighting has not paused for the diplomacy. But with a date now named and envoys shuttling between Kyiv and Moscow, next week's meeting in Abu Dhabi is shaping up as the most concrete test yet of whether Washington's mediation can move the war toward an end.
Sources: Asianet Newsable, "Ukraine, US and Russia Prepare for Crucial Trilateral Talks Next Week," November 5, 2026; The Independent, "Ukraine-Russia war latest," November 5, 2026; Reuters via Al Jazeera on the overnight strikes. Figures for the November 3 attack are attributed to President Zelenskyy and Ukrainian officials.