Significant differences remain." The negotiations on Ukraine in the United Arab Emirates ended without results.
Trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the US in Abu Dhabi, which took several months to prepare and took place after the failure of the previous round of meetings in February, ended without significant results.
"Significant differences remain," said US special envoy Jared Kushner, who will travel from Abu Dhabi with Steven Witkoff to the next Kremlin negotiations. According to Kushner, the "most difficult" issue remains the territorial issue. Vladimir Putin still demands that Ukraine hand over Donbass within its administrative borders. And besides, he insists on additional territorial concessions from Kiev for a final agreement with security guarantees.
"But implementing a post-war security (agreement) is impossible until there are agreements on territories," Kushner added. At the meeting in Abu Dhabi, for the first time since the war, a new "architecture" of European security was discussed. According to RBC-Ukraine sources, the Russian delegation brought the same demands it made before the invasion: returning NATO infrastructure to the 1997 borders and reducing the bloc's military cooperation with Ukraine and other post-Soviet countries.
But it was not possible to involve the Europeans, who sent diplomatic and security advisers from France, Germany and Great Britain, to the negotiations. They did not participate in the negotiations, said the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky.
According to Kushner, it was not possible to arrange a meeting between Putin and Vladimir Zelensky. "I believe the Russians have expressed a desire to see further progress before that happens," Kushner said.
Russia will only be satisfied when it wins and makes peace on its own terms, Medinsky said as he left Abu Dhabi. "As for territorial issues, every centimeter of our lands will be returned to Russia. Either way," he emphasized.