No agreement in Abu Dhabi as Trump’s envoys travel to Moscow for meeting with Putin

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, envoys of U.S. President Donald Trump, will travel to Moscow to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The visit comes after talks in Abu Dhabi between delegations from Russia, Ukraine and the United States, which ended without a concrete agreement to halt the war.

Jared Kushner announced the trip during a press conference held on Wednesday in the capital of the United Arab Emirates.

“Steve and I will travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin, to review what was discussed today and to try to make further progress on some of the issues we addressed, as we see some opportunities and room for progress,” the U.S. president’s son-in-law said.

The Moscow meeting will take place after two days of negotiations between Russian, Ukrainian and American representatives. It was the first contact in this format since February, while the Trump administration has stepped up diplomatic efforts to end the conflict in Ukraine, which is approaching its fifth year.

Wednesday’s talks lasted less than two hours and offered no indication that Russia had changed its position on its main demands. Vladimir Medinsky, Russia’s chief negotiator, said an understanding had been reached on several points, but not on all issues.

“In some areas, we reached a common understanding. In others, we did not. This conversation will undoubtedly continue,” Medinsky said.

Kushner said that future meetings would aim to finalize agreements on humanitarian aid and the exchange of prisoners. The discussions are also expected to address the involvement of European countries, a format that Moscow has so far opposed.

After the visit to Moscow, Kushner and Witkoff are expected to travel to Dublin, where they will meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to review the proposals discussed in Abu Dhabi.

The Ukrainian president praised the role of the United States in organizing the negotiations and announced that they had produced an “important humanitarian agreement” for a new prisoner exchange.

“The parties discussed their views on security guarantees, and the first step must be to end this war and guarantee Ukraine’s security. We also discussed broader formats for continuing the work, with the involvement of European partners,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram.

Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s foreign intelligence service and Kyiv’s chief negotiator, said there had been progress in several areas, including security issues. However, he warned that “significant differences” continued to exist between the parties.

Davyd Arakhamia, another member of the Ukrainian delegation, said the Russian representatives had come to the negotiating table with “very strict instructions.”

“I have been part of this process since 2022, and I can say with confidence that this was one of the most difficult rounds,” Arakhamia said.

Meanwhile, this week, European representatives held separate meetings in Abu Dhabi with Ukrainian and American negotiators.

A week ago, Trump spoke of a new security agreement for Ukraine, which he said “could include all of Europe.” Following that statement, European officials repeated their demand that their countries have a greater role in the peace negotiation process.

Moscow continues to oppose the direct participation of European representatives. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the presence of European officials in Abu Dhabi, describing it as an “unpromising approach.”

Asked whether there had been contact in the Emirati city between Russian representatives and those of the European Union, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “No such contact was planned, nor did it take place.”

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in Paris on Tuesday, during a G7 meeting, that Washington intended to expand the format of the talks so that Europeans would be “directly represented at that table.”

Ukraine has long called for European countries to take part in the main negotiating table.

“We believe that Europe should be represented at all stages of essential diplomacy,” Zelensky said on Wednesday.

The expected meeting in Moscow between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s envoys is seen as another effort to unblock the issues that continue to hinder an agreement to end the war in Ukraine.