Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi on Friday to discuss the key issue of territory, with no sign of compromise, as Russian air strikes plunged Ukraine into its worst energy crisis during the nearly four-year war.
Kiev is under increasing pressure from the United States to reach a peace agreement in the war sparked by Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, while Moscow is demanding that Ukraine cede the entire eastern industrial region of Donbas before it will stop fighting, Reuters reports.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the territorial dispute was a central topic of talks in the United Arab Emirates, which are due to conclude on Saturday.
"The most important thing is that Russia is ready to end this war that it started itself," Zelensky said in a statement posted on the Telegram app, adding that he was in constant contact with the Ukrainian delegation but that it was still too early to draw conclusions after Friday's talks.
"We will see how the talks continue tomorrow and what the outcome will be," he added.
Rustem Umerov, secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine and head of the delegation, said in a statement that the talks discussed parameters for ending the war and "the further logic of the negotiation process."
The talks are taking place a day after Zelensky met with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Zelensky said on Friday that the agreement on US security guarantees for Ukraine is ready and is just waiting for Trump to determine the exact date and place of signing.
Ukraine is seeking strong security guarantees from Western allies in the event of a peace deal to prevent Russia, which has shown little interest in ending the war, from invading again, Reuters reports.
Russia steps up attacks on energy infrastructure
The tripartite negotiations are taking place at a time of increased Russian attacks on Ukraine's energy system, which have left major cities like Kiev without electricity and heating, while temperatures drop well below freezing.
The head of Ukraine's largest private power producer, Maksim Timchenko, told Reuters on Friday that the situation was approaching a "humanitarian catastrophe" and that Ukraine needed a ceasefire to stop attacks on energy infrastructure.
Ukraine's energy minister said on Thursday that the country's electricity grid had suffered its most difficult day since a major blackout in November 2022, when Russia began bombing energy infrastructure.
Russia claims that it wants a diplomatic solution, but that it will continue to pursue its goals through military means until a negotiated solution is reached.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's demand that Ukraine hand over the 20 percent of the Donetsk region of Donbas that it still controls, about 5.000 square kilometers, has proven to be a major obstacle to reaching an agreement.
Zelensky refuses to give up territory that Russia failed to capture during four years of grueling war. Opinion polls show little support among Ukrainians for territorial concessions, according to Reuters.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia's demand that Ukraine cede all of Donbas is a "very important condition."
A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Moscow believes the so-called "Anchorage formula" - which Russia claims was agreed between Trump and Putin at a summit in Alaska last August - would give Russia control of all of Donbas and freeze the front lines in other parts of eastern and southern Ukraine.
Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow announced in 2022 that it had annexed after referendums that Kiev and Western countries have dismissed as fraudulent. Most countries still recognize Donetsk as part of Ukraine.
Moscow seeks use of frozen assets
Russia has also proposed that most of the nearly $5 billion in Russian assets frozen in the United States be used to rebuild territories in Ukraine that are under Russian occupation. Ukraine, backed by its European allies, is demanding that Russia pay war reparations.
Asked about the idea, Zelensky dismissed it as "nonsense."
Zelensky said in Davos on Thursday that the talks in Abu Dhabi were the first trilateral meetings involving Ukrainian and Russian envoys, mediated by the United States, since the start of the war.
Last year, Russian and Ukrainian delegations held their first direct meeting since 2022, when they met in Istanbul. A senior Ukrainian military intelligence officer also held talks with US and Russian delegations in Abu Dhabi in November.
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