After nine months of silence, Russia and Ukraine are sitting in the same room again. Negotiators from both countries, with the United States in the middle, opened two days of talks in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, November 10. It is the first time the three sides have met like this since February, and if you have been following this war for as long as I have, you know how rare that sentence has become.
Day one lasted about four hours. Nobody announced a deal, and nobody should have expected one. But the words coming out afterwards were warmer than I have heard in a long time. President Zelenskyy, who was briefed by his team after the session, called the first day “constructive and quite substantive”. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the meeting “very productive”. Jared Kushner, one of the two American envoys in the room, said he was encouraged by the talks. After four and a half years of war, even that much is worth noting.
What they actually talked about
The first day was mostly about people, not maps. That was Ukraine’s choice, and I think it was the right one. The delegations spent their time on humanitarian steps: a large prisoner exchange, the return of Ukrainian civilians held in captivity, and the return of children taken from the country. A senior Ukrainian official said the sides discussed a big exchange, with the details to be worked out in the coming days. No numbers and no date were announced yet, so I will not pretend this is done. But a prisoner swap is the kind of thing that can actually happen while the bigger arguments are still stuck, and it matters to real families right now.
Security guarantees were the other big item. Ukraine wants a promise that if the fighting stops, it will not simply start again later. A US official said both sides had shown “a little bit of flexibility, privately” on territory, and that one idea on the table is a defence commitment modelled on NATO’s Article 5. That is still a long way from an agreement, but it tells me the conversation has moved past slogans and into the hard part.
The hard part has not moved
Let me be honest about what has not changed. The land question is still the wall in the middle of the room. Russia wants Ukraine to hand over the parts of Donetsk it still holds. Ukraine will not give up land it still controls, and Zelenskyy has said so plainly. Russia holds roughly a fifth of Ukraine, including Crimea and parts of the Donbas. Nobody at that table has budged on that in public, and the fighting did not stop while they talked — Ukraine’s air force said Russia launched 162 drones and a ballistic missile overnight.
Europe is also in an odd spot. British, French, German and Italian officials, along with NATO and EU representatives, are in Abu Dhabi and met with the Ukrainians and Americans before the main session. But the Kremlin says the talks themselves stay trilateral, and the Europeans are not in the room. France has said there can be no lasting peace without European security being addressed, and they have a point. A deal made over Europe’s head will not hold.
Why I am still watching this one
I have seen enough rounds of these talks to know that a good first day means very little on its own. The delegations went back to the table on Wednesday, November 11, for day two. Zelenskyy has said he hopes this format can open the way to a meeting of leaders — himself, Putin and Trump — and there is talk of another round as early as next week. That is the test. If the prisoner exchange actually happens, and if the sides keep meeting, then this was a start. If day two ends in silence, then it was just another photo of flags on a table.
For now, I will take the small thing. After nine months without a single meeting, three delegations sat down, talked for four hours about bringing prisoners home, and agreed to come back the next day. In a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people, that is not peace. But it is the first time in a long while that the word does not feel completely out of reach.
Source: People’s Daily Online, “Russian, Ukrainian delegations arrive in Abu Dhabi for talks” (Nov 10, 2026); day-one outcome per Al Jazeera English and Associated Press coverage, Nov 10–11, 2026
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