Ukraine Peace Talks in Abu Dhabi: Europe Joins, Moscow Objects

Two days after the Kremlin said there was no seat for Europe at this week's Ukraine peace talks, France says Europe is coming anyway.

"France will be there and will ensure that Europe's voice is heard," Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot told French radio on Sunday, according to NPR. The meetings open Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, with the United States in the middle and Russian and Ukrainian delegations on either side.

Here's who is going, what's on the agenda and why few people expect a breakthrough.

What France actually said

Barrot was careful about the details. He said Europeans "will be well represented," but he wouldn't name France's envoy, said he won't be at the table himself, and didn't say whether European officials will negotiate or just observe.

His point was about principle. In recent weeks, he said, Europeans have told the American mediators that no discussion about the continent's future can ignore what Europe wants, and that nothing touching "the European security architecture" can be designed or even discussed without them, Euronews reported.

Until Sunday, the Nov. 10-11 meeting had been billed as a three-way session. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday that the trilateral format was already agreed and accused European governments of not deciding who speaks for them. He did concede that security talks would need Europe at some point.

Why Trump's 'major agreement' comment matters

The pressure from Paris follows something President Trump said on Thursday. After meeting Kremlin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, he predicted a coming deal that was "going to involve more than Ukraine" and "might involve all of Europe." He didn't explain.

That worried Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told CNN on Friday that nobody had briefed him on the deal and warned that "it can be dangerous." He pointed to Yalta in 1945, when the Allied powers settled Europe's postwar map without several of the countries affected. Barrot said Sunday he didn't know what Trump had in mind either.

Who will be in the room

Russia's delegation is again led by Vladimir Medinsky, a hard-line Putin aide who has been part of most talks with Ukraine since the failed first round in March 2022. This time, NPR reports, he's bringing more senior people than ever: Deputy Foreign Ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, Yury Zhigarlovsky of the General Staff's operations directorate, and military intelligence chief Igor Kostyukov.

That lineup could signal Moscow is ready to take on harder political and military questions. The Institute for the Study of War, a U.S. think tank, isn't so sure, noting that some of the same officials have slowed past talks or pushed harder on Russia's demands.

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff has said the agenda covers postwar security arrangements, de-escalation and humanitarian issues. It's the fourth round the Trump administration has brokered and the first since Geneva in February. Russia agreed to come back only after Witkoff met Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg in October.

The gaps haven't moved much

The core disagreement is the same as it was a year ago. Russia wants Ukraine to cede large parts of its territory and give up on NATO membership. Zelenskyy wants any security guarantee spelled out, including who would act, and how, if Russia attacks again.

Some veterans of the process expect little. John Herbst, a former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, wrote for the Atlantic Council that Putin has rejected every U.S. proposal Kyiv accepted, and that "perhaps the only outcome of the talks" will be agreeing to another round.

Politics in Washington also hang over the meeting. Democrats did well enough in last week's midterms to take control of Congress in January, and Zelenskyy has said that could help Ukraine's chances of more U.S. aid. NPR notes that Moscow may want to lock in the current administration's outline of a deal before that new Congress is sworn in. A possible Trump, Xi and Putin meeting at the APEC summit in Shenzhen, China, later this month is also being discussed.

The war hasn't paused

None of this has slowed the fighting. Zelenskyy said Russia fired 36 ballistic missiles at the Kyiv area overnight Saturday and only four were shot down. He accused Moscow of treating diplomacy "as a form of aggression." In southern Ukraine, the death toll from a guided-bomb strike Monday on an aid distribution site in Komyshuvakha has risen to at least 55.

The one recent bright spot is small: a limited local pause, which Melania Trump helped arrange, that let humanitarian aid into a town in Russian-occupied Ukraine. Whether Abu Dhabi produces anything bigger will start to become clear on Tuesday.