US Proposes UAE-Hosted Trilateral Talks on Ending Ukraine War

The United States has proposed that the United Arab Emirates host a trilateral meeting between American, Ukrainian and Russian officials aimed at ending Russia's four-and-a-half-year war in Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Friday. "The American side has proposed meeting at a technical level in a three-way format," Zelensky told reporters, adding that Kyiv is "awaiting a proposal from the United States regarding the date," while Washington has suggested Abu Dhabi or another Emirati city as the venue, according to the Moscow Times.

The proposal follows a bilateral meeting between Trump and Zelensky on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, where the two leaders discussed a proposed energy-infrastructure ceasefire, winter support for Ukraine's grid and licenses for Patriot air-defense production. Zelensky, who also addressed the General Assembly's general debate this week, said Ukrainian negotiators would brief European allies on the emerging format while American officials engage Moscow directly. "We will inform and discuss these details with the European side, the Americans will talk to the Russians, and we will return in 10 days with either a new perspective or a result," he said, according to Ukrinform.

The Kremlin, through spokesman Dmitry Peskov, said a trilateral meeting could take place "soon" and that Moscow had set no preconditions, following recent visits to both capitals by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The Emirates has positioned itself as a preferred neutral venue for the negotiations, having previously hosted rounds of talks involving the three parties, per the UAE Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Trump told reporters after the New York meeting that he believed "we're going to make a deal," though he offered no timetable. Zelensky has separately floated the December G20 summit as a possible venue for a more substantive three-way session should the technical-level talks in the Gulf produce results, according to the Kyiv Independent. No date for the UAE meeting had been set as of Friday morning.

The proposal marks the latest attempt to restart direct three-way engagement after months of shuttle diplomacy in which Witkoff and Kushner have traveled separately to Moscow and Kyiv rather than convening all sides at once. Zelensky also used his General Assembly address this week to press allies to keep restricting trade with Russia, telling delegates that "Russia's revenues must remain a target" and that "when someone gives Russia more money through trade, they give this war more time." Ukrainian officials have said they see an energy-infrastructure ceasefire, which would halt strikes on power plants and grid equipment on both sides, as a more achievable near-term step than a full ceasefire, given the onset of winter and Ukraine's continued reliance on emergency power imports.

The Emirates has cultivated a role as a go-between in the war, having previously facilitated prisoner exchanges between Kyiv and Moscow and hosted lower-level contacts between the two governments even as fighting continued along the front line in eastern Ukraine. Officials in both Kyiv and Washington cautioned that Friday's announcement described only a proposed format and venue for preliminary, technical-level discussions, not a summit involving Trump, Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin directly, which Zelensky has said should still be the eventual goal.