Zelenskyy lashes out at Europe ahead of first trilateral peace talks | World News

Analysis: What we know about the ‘trilateral meeting’

On the face of it, a trilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi tomorrow would be a significant development. It would be the first time the Russians, Ukrainians and Americans are in the same room.

But we still don’t know what will be discussed, or at what level. And we still don’t know if it’ll even happen.

Here’s what we do know…

The talks were first mentioned by US envoy Steve Witkoff at an event in Davos this morning. He said that he and Jared Kushner would travel to the UAE directly from Moscow tonight for meetings with working groups from both sides on specific aspects of the peace plan, including “military to military” issues.

President Zelenskyy then mentioned the talks in his speech. He said they’d be at a “technical level”. But afterwards, Kyiv announced it’ll be sending its top team, including lead negotiator Rustem Umerov as well as Zelenskyy’s chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov.

The attendance of such senior figures could indicate that the meeting has taken greater significance than originally planned. Perhaps something changed over the course of the day, maybe in the meeting with Zelenskyy and Trump.

On the other hand, it could just be signalling from Kyiv – an attempt to show the White House how willing they are to reach a settlement, while also trying to show up Vladimir Putin.

At the moment, there’s no response from Moscow, so it’s unclear if the Russians have agreed to the trilateral meeting.

Vladimir Putin doesn’t like to be bullied, though. He never responds to others’ demands. Everything is on his terms. So don’t expect any confirmation or otherwise from the Kremlin until after his meeting with Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner later tonight.

Pulling out of the meeting at the 11th hour wouldn’t look good, though, especially after the US side has hyped it. So I expect the Russians will show up in Abu Dhabi, but it might not be their top team.