Volodymyr Zelensky said that during trilateral negotiations held in Abu Dhabi, Russian representatives claimed Moscow had taken control of half of the territory in Donbas still held by Ukraine. The talks aim to advance efforts to end the conflict, now more than four years old.
The Ukrainian president said he had been informed of this position after Kyiv’s delegation delivered its second report from the meetings in the Middle East. He recounted that the Ukrainian team had responded that it did not understand the basis for the claims, and that video footage, photographs and other evidence showed the areas in question were still under Ukraine’s control.
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Russia controls a considerable part of Donbas and has previously demanded that Kyiv hand over the entire region as part of a possible peace agreement. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected these demands.
Zelensky described the discrepancy between the parties’ positions as one of the main obstacles to the negotiations and said Vladimir Putin “lives in another reality.” According to Zelensky, the U.S. side also backed the Ukrainian delegation’s position on control of the territories.
The Ukrainian president said he believed that the talks in Abu Dhabi, in their current format, which also includes envoys of President Donald Trump, were not enough to resolve the main issues in the war. To make concrete progress toward peace, he said, negotiations must take place directly between the leaders of the countries involved.
