US officials see territorial flexibility before Abu Dhabi talks, but Ukraine’s own press never reports it

Full analysis

What happened Why it matters How each country tells it Where accounts conflict Room for disagreement Our assessment Sources and evidence

What happened

The first US-mediated trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine in nine months opened in Abu Dhabi on 10 November and run through 11 November, resuming the format that last convened in the same city on 4–5 February 2026 and produced an exchange of 314 prisoners. The American side is led by special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the Emirati daily The National reports. TSN, Ukraine’s largest television news site, is alone in publishing both full delegation rosters: Ukraine’s team is headed by foreign intelligence chief Rustem Umerov and includes presidential office head Kyrylo Budanov, parliament faction leader David Arakhamia, deputy office head Serhiy Kyslytsia and military intelligence deputy chief Vadym Skibitsky; Russia’s includes Vladimir Medinsky, Sergei Ryabkov, Mikhail Galuzin, Igor Kostyukov and Yuri Zhigarlovsky.

The agenda is security first. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov both named security guarantees — for Ukraine, and for the wider region — as the key subject, TSN reports. A US official quoted by The National put it in broader terms: the talks would cover "long-term security architecture between Russia and Europe, how to reduce future conflicts." Alongside that sit de-escalation, humanitarian measures and prisoner exchanges; Budanov wrote on Telegram that Ukraine would devote "a lot of attention" to the humanitarian track and needs to step up prisoner swaps, a message carried by both TSN and India’s Hindustan Times.

Europe will be in Abu Dhabi, but not at the trilateral. Kushner and Witkoff plan separate consultations with representatives of Ukraine, the EU, NATO, Germany, France, Britain and Italy before the main talks, TSN and The National both report. European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen confirmed the EU’s presence after a call with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and Politico named the EU’s envoys as the commission’s chief of staff Björn Seibert and European Council president’s adviser Anna-Maria Bura, with Germany sending Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s foreign policy adviser Günter Sautter and NATO its secretary general’s chief of staff Jeffrey van Leeuwen. Moscow rejects this entire track. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Europe’s participation "is not envisaged" — a bilateral Ukraine-Russia format with US mediation only, as TSN quotes him. Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova went further in state agency RIA Novosti, calling the launch of Poland’s Koalicja exercises with 11 NATO countries on the eve of the talks "symbolic" proof that "Europeans have nothing to do at the negotiating table."

The most consequential line of the talks does not appear in the Ukrainian briefing. US officials told The Telegraph that Russia and Ukraine have privately signalled "some flexibility" on territorial concessions, carried in Estonia’s Postimees, and a US official told Reuters that all parties are coming "with some flexibility on territorial issues privately," carried in Hindustan Times. Both accounts add the same caveat: no territorial settlement is expected before the post-war security architecture, including guarantees, is clear. President Donald Trump said on 60 Minutes that Ukraine may end up "a little bit different shaped" — quoted by TSN, The National and Hindustan Times — and Peskov confirmed the Russian reading: "Ukraine from a geographic point of view is already a different country, realities on the ground are obvious." But TSN’s preview for Ukrainians never mentions the US officials’ flexibility claim. Instead it carries the Ukrainian counter-frame: analyst Vitaliy Portnikov argues the Russian delegation’s composition nearly repeats the 2025 Istanbul talks, with some officials even lowered in rank, and that the only new face, Sergei Ryabkov, was brought solely because of the trilateral format — evidence, in his reading, that the Kremlin has no real interest in negotiating.

On expectations, Trump told Reuters "something could happen" and that he sees "a very strong inclination" for the conflict to end, Hindustan Times reports. Rubio was cooler from the G7 foreign ministers’ meeting in France: "It’s been difficult to get anything productive out of that… But we’ll keep trying." Ukraine’s own Arakhamia told TSN he expects no concrete results from this first round — the main achievement, after the long pause, is the resumption of dialogue itself. Norway’s prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre likewise called the meeting an intermediate stage covering a Black Sea ceasefire, energy and a frozen front line, and said he doubts Vladimir Putin sincerely wants peace.

Why it matters

This is the first direct US-backed round since February, and what it does or does not produce will be read as a signal about whether the format can carry anything beyond prisoner exchanges. The agenda puts two questions on the table at once: security guarantees for Ukraine and a long-term security architecture between Russia and Europe. Lavrov’s version — that the first agenda item is "the security of Russia, Ukraine and generally security in this region" — is a Russian effort to set the terms, and The National’s analyst Matthew Boyse summarises the stakes from Washington’s critics: "Putin thinks he has the cards," especially after the US midterm elections weakened Trump politically and made him, in Boyse’s reading, "even more keen to be seen as a winner."

For Ukraine, the round is about holding a line under existential pressure. TSN’s coverage tells Ukrainians who is sitting for them, what their priorities are — prisoners first, per Budanov — and what their own analysts think of Moscow’s sincerity. The omission of the territorial flexibility claim leaves Ukrainians without their own press reporting the one line that would most change the deal their country might be asked to accept.

How each country tells it

• 🇷🇺
  RIA Novosti · Russia · original reporting

  RIA Novosti reads the trilateral from Moscow’s side as an agenda Russia sets with Washington, insisting the format is broader than Ukraine while casting European manoeuvres as proof that Brussels and the European NATO allies have no place at the table.
• 🇺🇦
  TSN · Ukraine · original reporting

  TSN offers Ukrainians a pre-negotiation briefing on what Kyiv, Washington and Moscow will each insist on, foregrounding security guarantees, prisoner exchanges and domestic analyst warnings that Russia has lowered rather than raised its seriousness.
• 🇦🇪
  The National · United Arab Emirates · original reporting

  The National covers the talks as a high-stakes event being hosted in its own country, pairing the US official line on security guarantees with expert doubt that Moscow has any incentive to compromise.
• 🇪🇪
  Postimees · Estonia · carries The Telegraph

  Postimees leads not on the meeting’s agenda but on The Telegraph’s report that US negotiators see Ukrainian flexibility on territorial concessions, reading the talks as a threat assessment about what may be conceded over Europe’s head.
• 🇮🇳
  Hindustan Times · India · carries Reuters and Associated Press

  Hindustan Times covers the opening as a possible global turning point, pairing Trump’s talk of a breakthrough with Marco Rubio’s public caution and reporting the territorial flexibility and wider European consultations through agency dispatches.

Where accounts conflict

The sharpest divergence is not between Russia and Ukraine but over what Ukraine is privately prepared to concede on territory. US officials speaking to The Telegraph, carried by Postimees, and to Reuters, carried by Hindustan Times, say all parties are showing some flexibility privately, with any territorial agreement left to the final stage of negotiations once the post-war security framework is clear. TSN’s Ukrainian preview does not carry this claim anywhere. Nor does any Ukrainian voice in TSN confirm it; the publication instead gives Ukrainians Portnikov’s argument that Russia’s unchanged, partly lowered delegation shows the Kremlin has no interest in real negotiation, and Arakhamia’s plain statement that no concrete results are expected from the first round. This is not a stated denial from Kyiv — it is an absence, a gap between what third-country channels tell the world and what Ukraine’s own media tells Ukrainians.

Room for disagreement

The strongest case that the flexibility claim is real and significant goes like this: US officials made it on the record to two separate news organisations, and Trump’s public language on 60 Minutes — "a little bit different shaped Ukraine" — points the same way. Ukraine’s silence does not amount to a rejection; Kyiv has spent the run-up to the talks focused on humanitarian issues, and Budanov’s own message that "the diplomatic process keep going" suggests a delegation prepared to be practical. The February round produced 314 prisoners, a concrete result no one derides; another such outcome would itself be a step. And Trump’s framing, repeated to the White House press pool after meeting Qatar’s prime minister, that the US has had "a very good conversation with Russia and Ukraine" and sees "a very strong inclination" to end the conflict, is the kind of public pressure that has previously moved talks forward.