Two days of trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi ended on November 11 with an agreement in principle on a large-scale prisoner exchange and almost nothing else.
The exchange could involve between 1,000 and 1,500 people on each side, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who spoke in Dublin as the talks concluded. He said Kyiv has always sought an all-for-all exchange and could not understand why “thousands more” should wait in captivity.
Russian chief negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said territorial exchanges were out of the question, according to Russian state media. Ukraine’s proposal for an energy ceasefire was rejected on the grounds that the delegation had no mandate to discuss it. Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said “significant differences remain.”
The diplomatic breakthrough was structural rather than substantive: Washington is now seeking to widen the frame beyond Ukraine’s future to European security arrangements, potentially bringing European governments into a process that has largely excluded them.
US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are due in Moscow on November 12 to meet President Vladimir Putin, then in Dublin to meet Zelenskyy. Whether that produces movement or simply more activity is the open question. “It has not been substantive,” Paul Saunders of the Center for the National Interest told RFE/RL of the progress so far.
Source: RFE/RL, Nov. 11, 2026. Photo: comedian44, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. Illustrative — Abu Dhabi skyline.
