2 November 2026
The latest round of diplomacy around Ukraine, which began with two days of talks in Abu Dhabi and continued on Thursday with another visit to the Kremlin by special envoys from the Donald Trump administration, has failed to move the peace process forward.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine changed their positions during the talks, a source close to the Kremlin told Bloomberg . According to him, Steven Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s trip to Moscow, where they again spent two hours talking with Vladimir Putin, was nothing more than a “courtesy visit.”
At a press conference following two rounds of talks in Abu Dhabi, Kouchner acknowledged that “significant differences remain” between Moscow and Kyiv, and that there is a lack of trust between the parties. He called the territorial issue “the most difficult,” since without resolving it, it would be impossible to conclude a pact on a “new security architecture” in Europe.
Opening the meeting with Witkoff and Kushner, Vladimir Putin declared that the demarcation line could only be the “state border,” and again rejected any peacekeeping contingent in Ukraine. “We have said from the very beginning that the presence of any foreign troops on Ukrainian territory is absolutely unacceptable for us. Because we believe it threatens the security of the Russian Federation,” Putin said.
Vladimir Medinsky, the head of the Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi, warned yesterday that the Kremlin is intent on seizing even more Ukrainian land. “Every inch of our land will be returned to Russia,” Medinsky said , and the “buffer zone” in the border regions “will expand.”
Judging by the outcome of the negotiations, the war will continue, and the “diplomatic choreography” surrounding it will continue to resemble an “absurd circus,” says Slawomir Debski, professor of international relations at the College of Europe in Natolin.
Putin needs a far more significant prize than Donbas: weakening NATO, driving the Americans out of Europe, and gaining veto power over the sovereign choices of neighboring states, Debski lists. “Ukraine, however, needs a peace that would allow it to survive; Europe cannot accept Russia controlling European security, and America has no rational strategic reason to facilitate this,” the expert believes.
“Negotiations can help organize prisoner exchanges and resolve other practical issues, but they cannot create a political foundation for peace where it does not yet exist,” Debski believes.
The talks in Abu Dhabi, where representatives from Russia and Ukraine met for the first time in nine months, were tense and at times emotional, a source who was present at the meeting told Axios. According to the source, both sides aired grievances, and Witkoff and Kushner tried to “lower the temperature,” explaining that the purpose of the meeting was to develop options for the two countries’ leaders.
According to Axios sources, the Americans proposed that Russia develop a new plan for a “European security architecture” that would include not only Moscow’s claims, but also reciprocal “symmetrical steps”—de-escalation and non-aggression guarantees.
This circus is the best place for Beavis and Butthead’s circle-jerking with the vampire. I wish they would stay in mafia land.
“We have said from the very beginning that the presence of any foreign troops on Ukrainian territory is absolutely unacceptable for us.”
What are russians then?
What a sick joke.
You can’t negotiate with genocidal scum.
That’s why the putler-rimmer in chief hired those two cocksuckers instead of negotiators.
In WW2, the penalty for Nazi collaborators was death.
It certainly should be now too.
🤮🤮🤮