Russia’s delegation to next week’s US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi will be its most senior in months. On the night before the Kremlin confirmed the lineup, it fired ballistic missiles at Kyiv. Kyiv, meanwhile, is uneasy for another reason: President Trump is now talking about a much larger deal that Ukraine’s leader says he has not been shown.
Who Moscow is sending
On Friday the Kremlin named its team for the trilateral talks with Ukraine and the United States, set for 10–11 November in the UAE capital:
- Vladimir Medinsky, presidential aide, who has led Russia’s delegation in earlier rounds
- Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, both deputy foreign ministers
- Igor Kostyukov and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, senior General Staff officials
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said presidential foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov would oversee the negotiations. Putin reportedly went over the talks with his Security Council the same day and chose the delegates personally.
Defence Meridian analysis: On paper, this is a team that can make decisions, combining diplomats, the military and military intelligence. Kostyukov heads the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. Ryabkov is Moscow’s long-time point man on relations with Washington and arms control, and Galuzin covers the former Soviet space, including Ukraine. But a similar lineup led by Medinsky went to Istanbul in 2025, and those talks produced prisoner exchanges, not a political breakthrough. The Kremlin has given no sign that its terms have changed, so a more senior team means Moscow is taking the meeting seriously. It does not by itself mean Moscow is ready to compromise.
Missiles before the meeting
The announcement came after another large overnight Russian strike on Kyiv. President Zelenskyy said the attack was Moscow’s answer to the planned talks, accusing Russia of preparing for negotiations by hitting critical infrastructure with ballistic missiles.
The pattern is familiar from earlier rounds in this war: heavy strikes just before talks, which raise the cost of holding out for Kyiv and signal that Russia will keep its military pressure on regardless of diplomacy.
Two tracks, and a confused agenda
The Abu Dhabi meeting was announced on 2 November by US special envoy Steve Witkoff. He said it would cover ending the war, post-war security arrangements, de-escalation and humanitarian steps.
Three days later the picture got murkier. After meeting Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House on 5 November, Trump spoke of a far broader agreement, one that might take in “all of Europe.” No details have been released.
Zelenskyy told CNN he had not seen the full proposal, that it was not simple, and that it could be dangerous for Ukraine. His position is that the order matters: ending the war and securing guarantees for Ukraine have to come before any wider European settlement.
Europe is uneasy too. EU Council President António Costa has backed Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s complaint that the peace process is in disarray, and Peskov has mocked European capitals for struggling to agree on who would represent them at the table.
Why the sequencing fight matters
Whether a deal starts with Ukraine or with Europe as a whole is the central strategic question of these talks.
If the talks start with Ukraine, the main issues are territory, a ceasefire line and guarantees for Kyiv, and Ukraine’s security comes first. If they start with “all of Europe,” the subject becomes the continent’s whole security arrangement: NATO’s eastern posture, troop deployments and arms control. That is the ground Moscow has wanted to negotiate on since before the 2022 invasion.
The Institute for the Study of War said this week that US officials are presenting a list of topics all parties have agreed to discuss, including security guarantees and European security architecture. It also concluded that Russia’s stated positions on those topics remain incompatible with those of the United States, Ukraine and Europe. Agreeing to discuss something is not the same as agreeing on it.
What to watch in Abu Dhabi
- The agenda order. Watch whether US mediators keep Ukraine-specific issues first, or whether the broader European framework moves to the front.
- Small deliverables. Prisoner exchanges, returns of children taken to Russia, and possible limited ceasefires covering energy infrastructure or the sea, which Zelenskyy has named as priorities.
- Strikes during the talks. Whether Russia keeps up large-scale missile and drone attacks while its delegation is at the table.
- Washington’s leverage. Kyiv’s allies say the US midterm results have improved Ukraine’s chances of further American military aid, and that could strengthen its hand.
Bottom line
By sending senior officials, Moscow shows it is taking Abu Dhabi seriously. Whether it is ready to deal is a separate question. The real test is what goes on the table first. If talks drift toward a grand bargain over Europe before Ukraine’s own security is settled, Kyiv’s fear that the deal would be dangerous for Ukraine may turn out to be right.
