US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have started a meeting in Moscow with President Vladimir Putin following two days of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
The November 12 meeting is Witkoff's 10th with Putin as Washington presses ahead with efforts to broker an end to the war, despite little sign of compromise on the key issues dividing Moscow and Kyiv.
The talks come as Russian strikes continue to kill civilians and damage Ukraine's energy infrastructure, while Kyiv says it has been experiencing renewed disruptions to the US-made Starshield satellite communications system that threaten to hamper Ukraine's defenses against aerial attacks
While the Abu Dhabi discussions on November 10-11 appeared to yield only limited humanitarian progress, with a large-scale prisoner exchange in the works, there was no sign of a breakthrough toward peace.
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Abu Dhabi Talks Advance Diplomacy, Not Peace, As Russia Seeks Broader Security BargainUS officials described the negotiations as tough but productive, while Moscow and Kyiv remained far apart in their positions, with the Kremlin offering no concessions on its hard-line demands.
Russia's chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, who led previous talks with Ukraine in 2022 and 2025 without breaking the deadlock, said territorial exchanges as part of a settlement were out of the question.
The Kremlin has for years been pushing for any peace deal to include full control over territory in Ukraine's key eastern Donetsk region, which Russian forces have been unable to seize on the battlefield.
The issue has been widely regarded as central to the resolution of the conflict.
The talks, however, have also looked at wider security arrangements for Europe, with Washington seeking to broaden negotiations beyond Ukraine.
While such discussions could potentially bring European governments into a peace process from which they have so far largely been excluded, the matter has previously been used by Russia as another major obstacle to a diplomatic resolution of the war.
Prior to its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Moscow blamed the crisis on NATO and the United States, accusing them of "escalating tensions" and demanding what it called security guarantees.
The demands included a ban on Ukraine joining NATO and limits on the deployment of troops and weapons to the alliance's eastern flank, a move that would effectively return NATO forces to their 1997 positions.
Zelenskyy said that Kyiv hoped concrete results could be achieved this year in talks on resolving the conflict as Ukraine heads into its fifth wartime winter with thousands of people repeatedly left without electricity or heating amid relentless Russian strikes.
But much of the progress in the talks depended on how the United States approaches Moscow, the Ukrainian president added.
"We are living through these massive attacks," he said. "Of course, we want to get results by the end of this year, and of course, we will be doing everything to make that happen."
Oleksandr Krayev, an analyst at Ukrainian Prism, a Kyiv-based think tank, told Current Time that he saw Zelenskyy's remarks as "primarily a homage to the US negotiators and a tribute to US involvement in the process," amid Washington's interest for a "quick result" that Kyiv fears might come at "Ukraine's expense."
Ukrainian government has repeatedly argued that increasing pressure on the Kremlin and its war machine could shift the balance of power in the war and force Russia into meaningful negotiations that could stop the conflict.
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US Congress Urged To Tighten Russia Sanctions, Speed Military AidThe current US administration, however, has taken a more conciliatory approach toward Russia, recently easing sanctions and striking a diesel deal with Moscow while pressing Kyiv not to attack its oil refineries.
During Witkoff's last meeting with Putin in October, he called the Russian leader a "humanitarian" after Moscow released US citizen Stephen Hubbard from prison, framing the development as a goodwill gesture.
Speaking to RFE/RL's Russian Service, political analyst Aleksandr Morozov, said that "talk of restoring some kind of European security sounds almost absurd" while Ukraine was experiencing "the peak of Russian aggression."
"Throughout US President Donald Trump's peace initiative, Moscow has been thanking him for his efforts while simultaneously manipulating Washington's intention to bring about a cease-fire," he added.
The fighting showed no sign of abating on November 12, as Russia and Ukraine exchanged fresh drone and missile attacks while the US envoys arrived in Moscow.
Explosions were reported in Kyiv, where at least one person was killed when a Russian drone has struck high-rise residential building, setting it on fire and partially destroying one of its floors.
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Russian Strike On Kyiv Kills 44-Year-Old Woman
"I rushed outside right after I heard an explosion. This is neither the first nor the last one," local resident Lyudmyla told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service following the strike, adding that such incidents "happen very often" in the Ukrainian capital.
Another person was reported killed in the southern Kherson region, while strikes damaged civilian and energy infrastructure in the western Rivne region, leaving more than 160 settlements there without power.
Since 2022, the Kremlin has repeatedly exploited cold weather to intensify its air strikes in a bid to pressure Ukraine into accepting its conditions for peace.
Recently, Ukraine's hurdles were also compounded by speed limits in its use of the Starshield satellite communications system, made by Elon Musk's company SpaceX, which Kyiv relies heavily on for anti-drone defense.
Originally imposed in mid-October, restrictions on Starshield speeds in Ukraine were eventually lifted. But weeks after, on November 12, Zelenskyy claimed the issue had resurfaced, affecting "the entire front line."
There was no immediate reaction from the US government or SpaceX. The company had previously been restricting Ukraine's use of its services in light of what Musk called "conflict escalation" amid Kyiv's efforts to target Russia's sites it said helped fuel the war.
On November 12, Russian authorities reported intercepting drones heading toward Moscow and over several other regions, including Rostov and Tula.