Contentious Issue Of Donbas Focus Of US-Ukraine-Russia Talks

US, Ukrainian, and Russian negotiators were set to meet in Abu Dhabi on January 23 for further talks on Moscow's war against Ukraine after Russia signaled no softening of hardline territorial demands following a late-night meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and a White House delegation in Moscow.

A senior Putin aide said Russia was satisfied with the outcome of nearly four hours of talks in the Kremlin.

The January 22-23 talks between Putin and special envoy Steve Witkoff, who has now met with Putin seven times in a year, came amid a new burst of negotiations that included Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy flying to Switzerland to meet with Trump earlier on January 22.

Talks In Abu Dhabi

Officials said the meetings in Abu Dhabi, the first three-way US-Ukraine-Russia talks since Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, would focus on security issues related to the biggest war in Europe since 1945.

Zelenskyy told reporters the Abu Dhabi talks, which may continue on January 24, would include the highly contentious issue of territory in the Donbas -- eastern Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions -- much of which is occupied by Russian forces.

"The issue of the Donbas is key. It will be discussed, and the modalities of how the three parties see it, in Abu Dhabi today and tomorrow," he said in a WhatsApp chat.

Ahead of the Abu Dhabi talks, Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated Russia's long-standing demand that Ukrainian forces leave the portion of the Donbas that they still hold.

"Russia's well-known position is that Ukraine, the Ukrainian Armed
Forces, must leave the territory of the Donbas territory, they must be withdrawn from there," Peskov told journalists. "This is a very important precondition. There are also other nuances that remain on the negotiation agenda."

In comments to Russian reporters after the Kremlin talks, Putin's foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov signaled no breakthroughs.

Putin told the Americans that Russia was “sincerely interested” in a diplomatic solution, Ushakov said, adding that “until this is achieved, Russia will continue to consistently pursue the objectives" of its war.

“This is particularly true on the battlefield, where the Russian armed forces hold the strategic initiative,” he said.

Russia has been capturing additional land in the Donbas slowly and at a massive cost in casualties, but Putin and other officials have repeatedly said its forces will seize further territory they claim by force if Moscow does not obtain it through diplomacy.

Ushakov also pointed to face-to-face talks between Trump and Putin in Alaska in August 2025, a meeting US officials said was inconclusive but Russian officials said was productive.

“Most importantly, during [the Kremlin talks] it was reiterated that without resolving the territorial issue according to the formula agreed upon in Anchorage, there is no hope of achieving a long-term settlement,” he said.

Russian Demands

Ukraine says relinquishing the part of the Donbas that its forces hold, which includes a "fortress belt" of well defended towns and cities, would reward Russia for its aggression and leave Ukraine very vulnerable to new attacks.

Donetsk is one of four mainland Ukrainian regions that Moscow's forces partially occupy and that Putin claims belong to Russia -- an assertion that is adamantly rejected by Kyiv and much of the West and has minimal support internationally.

According to Zelenskyy, Ukraine and the United States have discussed a potential compromise in which that part of the Donbas would become a demilitarized zone or a free economic zone, with Ukrainian forces withdrawing and Russian troops barred from entering.

Zelenskyy signaled in December that he is open to such a plan, if Ukrainians support it, but that if Ukraine withdraws its troops Russia should do the same, pulling its forces back a comparable distance.

The Kremlin has indicated it would not agree to move its forces backward under any scenario that does not recognize the entirety of the Donbas as Russian and allow it to patrol the area with police and national guard units -- which in some cases are heavily militarized.

Zelenskyy, on the contrary, has suggested that demilitarized areas could be policed by Ukraine, with international forces monitoring the line of contact between the two sides.

The US delegation at the late-night Kremlin talks, which also included Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Josh Gruenbaum, commissioner of the U.S. Federal Acquisition Service, made no statement after that meeting.

Russian officials indicated that the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi would focus on security, while the US and Russia would hold separate economic talks. Ushakov said the director of the Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU would be attending the trilateral meeting.

Zelenskyy told journalists the format of the talks "may vary, and the [negotiating] team will determine them directly on the ground."

He said that before the start of the talks on January 23, he spoke to delgation head Rustem Umerov with the rest of the Ukrainian team on speakerphone. "Everyone understands what needs to be done," he said. "We discussed the framework of the talks, the agenda, and the desired outcome."

One of Kyiv's lead negotiators is Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, a former director of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency. Zelenskyy said the agency's current head, Oleh Ivashchenko, and a deputy were also in the Ukrainian delegation.

Zelenskyy, who has had a sometimes frosty relationship with the White House in the past, praised his Davos meeting with Trump, though it was unclear exactly what, if anything, was agreed to. US and Ukrainian officials have been trying to finalize a plan that would give US companies preferential access to Ukrainian minerals and some industries.

Another crucial issue and matter of dispute has been Western security guarantees for Ukraine in the event of a peace deal, with Russia opposing the deployment of troops from NATO nations in Ukraine.

Zelenskyy told reporters that security guarantees for Ukraine "are really ready, and the contract is ready for signing.... Now I am waiting for President Trump to give me a date and place. It's up to him."

Trump has been seeking to broker an end to Russia's war on Ukraine since he took office for his second term a year ago.

"The meeting was good with President Zelenskyy. We'll see how it turns out," Trump told reporters in brief comments in Davos on January 22, adding that his message to Putin was, "The war has to end."

While Kyiv and many of its backers in Europe say they do not believe Putin is seeking peace, Trump has blamed both sides for the lack of an agreement.

“What happens is, oftentimes we’ll have a deal with Russia, Russia’s set, and President Zelenskyy will not do it.... And then, we’ll have President Zelenskyy wants to make a deal and Putin doesn’t want to make a deal,” he said on January 21.