Special envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff will meet with Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin on Thursday after “one of the toughest” rounds of peace talks in Abu Dhabi to end the war in Ukraine.
Negotiators from the U.S., Ukraine, and Russia huddled in Abu Dhabi for day two of the trilateral talks on ways to end the war, and officials hinted that tough talks are ahead on some of the biggest sticking points.
“These were very substantive. They were some pretty tough discussions after, I think, almost eight months of not being together,” Kushner told reporters afterward. “The conversations were very thorough. We covered all the relevant issues.”
One breakthrough that came from the meeting was a proposal to have one of the largest releases of prisoners of war — with the exact figure set to be finalized during the meeting with Putin in Moscow on Thursday.
The two diplomatic gurus are also expected to press Putin on converting the trilateral talks into multilateral ones and bring European negotiators into the fold.
Russia’s delegation boss Vladimir Medinsky later confirmed the plan.
“We’ve relayed to President Putin directly several times and to his team that the only way to get this done is to have them by our side,” Kushner explained. “I think that they’re receptive to it.”
“Hopefully tomorrow in Moscow, Steve and I will be successful, and President Putin will give the blessing for that to occur.”
Following their meeting with Putin, Kushner and Witkoff are expected to trek over to Dublin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
During the talks on Wednesday, the negotiators made progress on discussions about security guarantees for Ukraine and how to establish a de-escalation mechanism after the war wraps up.
“This was one of the toughest ones,” Ukrainian negotiator Davyd Arakhamia said of the meeting. “I think the Russians came with very, very strict directives. And it was very hard to actually soften the discussion.”
Ukrainian negotiators described how their Russian counterparts seemed to have almost no wiggle room on some of the toughest sticking points of the peace talks.
Arakhamia was hopeful that Kushner and Witkoff could get Putin to have the Russians loosen up their posture at the negotiating table.
“No issues weren’t discussed,” Kushner said. “The territorial issues, which will be the hardest, but we do believe that, as we discuss these other issues, we’ll find a pathway to settle them all.”
On territory, both Russia and Ukraine have been at odds over control of the Donetsk region. Russia is estimated to have about 80% to 85% of that territory, but has been unable to capture the remainder of it by force.
Ukrainian officials fear that if they cede the Donetsk fortress belt, they will have given up their best line of defense and make themselves vulnerable if Russia violates any future agreements and tries to take even more land by force.
Ukraine’s Zelensky called the day-one talks on Tuesday “constructive and quite substantive.”
This is the first trilateral since the failed February effort in Geneva.
Amid the talks, Russia has been pummeling Ukrainian energy infrastructure in an apparent effort to beat Ukraine into submission during an expected bruising winter.
“I think that every pre-winter time Russia tries to put the maximum pressure because winter [is] like where we are the most vulnerable,” Arakhamia acknowledged.
“This year we are more vulnerable because of the lack of interceptors,” he added. “Ukraine knows and learn[ed] … how to sustain the winter.”
