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President Volodymyr Zelensky said after the first day of sessions that constructive and substantive negotiations took place, covering practical steps toward ending the war, the release of prisoners, security guarantees for Ukraine and concrete discussion of further negotiations to come, according to Yonhap News Agency reporting of his social media statement. He added that killings on the battlefield continue and that Ukraine is defending itself against Russia’s invasion, and in a separate post the same morning he urged partners to put more pressure on Russia, citing overnight air strike damage. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov rejected the European proposal that a ceasefire come before discussion of European security, saying a ceasefire would let the Ukrainian side make up for military losses. Both characterisations are the respective governments’ stated positions; no joint text from the room has been published.
The trilateral track resumed in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, November 10, with Russian and Ukrainian envoys meeting under US mediation for a two day round expected to cover ceasefire monitoring and territory. The talks are reported, not announced in a joint communique: no agenda or delegation list has been published by the hosts, and the round’s opening was confirmed by wire reporting rather than by an official programme.
Ahead of the session with Russia, the European partners, Ukraine and the United States met and issued a joint statement, published by the European Council and the European Commission on Tuesday morning. The statement says the participants coordinated on efforts to end the war and establish conditions for a durable peace, including support for robust security guarantees as part of any settlement. It says any future arrangements must respect sovereignty, territorial integrity and independent decision making, and must provide credible security guarantees for Ukraine.
The statement’s strategic core is institutional. The participants reaffirmed a shared commitment to a strong post war European security architecture and said a strong NATO will remain central to Euro Atlantic collective defence. They said they would keep working in close partnership through the negotiating process, with the objective of moving toward broader multilateral discussions involving European partners. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he and Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had coordinated positions before the talks, and von der Leyen said the EU would be present alongside its partners.
Moscow’s position, stated by the Kremlin and reported on Monday, is that the Abu Dhabi format remains trilateral: Russia, Ukraine and the United States, with the Europeans running their own coordination alongside rather than sitting in the Russia session. That distinction matters beyond protocol. A settlement negotiated in a trilateral room and guaranteed in a European one leaves the guarantee’s legal and military form to be settled later, and the joint statement’s language on robust guarantees is a coordination position, announced, not a negotiated text with Russia.
What to watch is the round’s close on Wednesday, November 11: any agreed text on ceasefire monitoring, any statement on territory, and whether the broader multilateral format the Europeans propose is taken up or left as an aspiration. Until a document emerges, the Abu Dhabi round is a resumed process, not a breakthrough, and claims of concessions from any side should be treated as that side’s narrative.