Excessive stakes however low expectations for Ukraine talks with Russia and US

[ad_1] Sarah Rainsford Japanese Europe correspondent , Kyiv

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/ba8a/live/32185050-f8a2-11f0-a422-4ba8a094a8fa.jpg.webp" loading="eager" alt="Reuters A handout photo released by the UAE Presidential Court shows UAE President Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan (centre), meeting Steve Witkoff, United States Special Envoy (R), Rustem Umerov, Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine (2-R), Igor Kostyukov, Chief of the Main Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces (3-L), and Jared Kushner (2-L) during UAE-hosted trilateral talks between the United States, Russia and Ukraine at Al Shati Palace in Abu Dhabi. The participants are sitting in a semi-circle with the Russian, UAE, US and Ukrainian flags behind them." class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Reuters This was the primary time the three delegations have met in the identical room collectively.

Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the US have been assembly in Abu Dhabi for his or her first trilateral talks since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

However while the talks take a brand new format, the core variations stay the identical.

The stakes are excessive, however expectations are restricted.

Donald Trump is pushing laborious for a peace deal in Ukraine – the one he promised however hasn't but delivered – and he mentioned this week that the 2 sides can be "silly" in the event that they could not agree.

However regardless of some intense shuttle diplomacy by his personal envoys, they're internet hosting the primary trilateral talks involving Ukrainian and Russian negotiators with some main points nonetheless unresolved.

Ukraine is partaking with the method as a result of it needs peace greater than anybody, but in addition as a result of it must preserve the US onside. It realized that lesson the laborious approach final 12 months, when Donald Trump briefly suspended intelligence sharing and army assist.

<img sizes="(min-width: 1280px) 50vw, (min-width: 1008px) 66vw, 96vw" srcset="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/240/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 240w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/320/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 320w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 480w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/640/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 640w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/800/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 800w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1024/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 1024w,https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/1536/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp 1536w" src="https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/480/cpsprodpb/88c3/live/920c7380-f85a-11f0-933b-47b4ddaac6f0.jpg.webp" loading="lazy" alt="Getty Images Volodymyr Zelenskiy, Ukraine's president, during the World Economic Forumin Davos." class="sc-5340b511-0 hLdNfA"/> Getty Pictures Ukraine needs peace greater than anybody on this course of

Now, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says his talks with Trump in Davos had been "actually optimistic" and he hopes for extra air defence help towards Russia's relentless assaults consequently.

Typically grim-faced after his encounters with the US chief, this time Zelensky appeared unusually upbeat.

However he stays cautious on the end result of talks within the United Arab Emirates.

He is described the conferences, which can final two days, as "a step", however shied away from calling it a optimistic one.

"We have now to want it is going to push us a bit nearer to peace," is how he put it.

For some time, Zelensky has talked about being 90% of the best way to producing a framework deal for peace, however the ultimate 10% was all the time going to be the toughest - and Russia might nonetheless reject the entire thing.

"It is all concerning the japanese a part of our nation. It is all concerning the land. That is the problem that is not resolved but," he defined, spelling out the largest impediment that he says nonetheless stays.

Russia insists that Ukraine ought to hand over the large slice of the japanese Donbas area, which it has didn't win on the battlefield. Ukraine refuses.

Politicians usually speak about their purple strains, however for this nation the road within the Donbas is drawn with the blood of the troopers who died defending it.

Zelensky cannot cross it.

As I write this, the music from one other soldier's funeral is drifting up from a church on the street.

On my approach again into Ukraine this time, we drove previous so many army graves in roadside cemeteries, all marked with flags.

The opposite huge difficulty up for dialogue within the UAE is what the US would do, militarily, if Russia had been to invade Ukraine once more sometime. That is what Ukraine calls its "safety ensures", and says are important.

Zelensky says the deal between the US and Ukraine is completed, however we now have no actual particulars.

Russia's response additionally stays a wide-open query.

There's additionally the large new doubt about how good a assure from Donald Trump actually is: the US president's fixation on "buying" Greenland has severely undermined Nato.

He is additionally undermined the very precept of defending a nation's sovereignty, the entire foundation for Western help for Ukraine.

So can Kyiv belief him to come back to the rescue within the subsequent disaster? For now, it does not have a lot selection.

As for trusting Vladimir Putin, nobody right here is beneath any illusions that his goals have modified.

"He actually does not need it," is what Zelensky mentioned in Davos about Putin and peace.

The Kremlin has mentioned that if it does not get what it needs on the speaking desk, it is going to "obtain its goals on the battlefield" - although it is failed to this point, regardless of sacrificing an enormous variety of troopers.

So as soon as once more, it is concentrating on civilian infrastructure throughout the nation - however in a extra deliberate, sustained, and devastating approach than ever earlier than.