Russia has agreed in principle to resume three way talks on Ukraine, with Abu Dhabi proposed as the venue for a round around November 10. The step followed a three hour meeting on October 21 between President Vladimir Putin and United States special envoy Steve Witkoff at the Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg, the ninth in person meeting between the two men.
Kremlin foreign affairs aide Yuri Ushakov said the proposed format would bring together Russia, Ukraine and the United States at technical level. The format has not met since February 2026, and earlier rounds in Abu Dhabi and Geneva produced only prisoner swaps. Ushakov said the next round should concentrate on building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the end of the conflict, a framing that leaves the hardest questions untouched for now.
What changed in St. Petersburg
Witkoff arrived in Russia less than a day after talks in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store and Finnish President Alexander Stubb, with representatives from Britain, France, Germany, Poland, the European Union and NATO also involved. President Donald Trump’s son in law Jared Kushner joined the St. Petersburg session by video link. Moscow opened the meeting with a gesture, announcing the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74 year old retired schoolteacher from Michigan who had been detained in Russia for more than four years.
The release was presented as a goodwill gesture toward Washington, and it was paired with discussion of a diesel supply arrangement agreed between Putin and Trump on October 9. IRIA News reported that the three hour meeting produced no peace agreement and no immediate ceasefire, and that major disagreements over territorial control and Ukraine’s future security remain unresolved.
Why agreement in principle is not a breakthrough
The phrase matters. Agreement in principle keeps diplomacy alive without conceding anything on the terms that have blocked a settlement. Moscow’s demands on Donetsk, NATO membership and demilitarisation were reported as unchanged, and Ushakov dismissed the Oslo proposals as lacking real value for resolving the crisis. While the diplomacy unfolded, Russian drones struck residential and energy sites in Kyiv and Kharkiv, a reminder that talks and fighting are proceeding in parallel.
For Ukraine and its European partners, the test of the Abu Dhabi proposal will be whether a technical round can move beyond prisoner exchanges and postwar security language to the issues that decide a war: territory, security guarantees, and reconstruction. For now, the calendar gives the process a date and a place. Whether November 10 brings a negotiation or another pause will depend on what each side is prepared to put on the table when the three delegations sit down together again.
