Ukrainian and Russian officials wrapped up a "productive" first day of new US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi, Kyiv's lead negotiator said today, as fighting in Europe's biggest conflict since World War Two raged on.
The two-day trilateral meetings come after Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Russia had exploited a US-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles yesterday.
Despite the Kremlin repeating its hardline demands ahead of the talks, Ukraine's top negotiator Rustem Umerov said the first day had been "substantive and productive, focused on concrete steps and practical solutions".
Zelensky said today that he expected a new prisoner exchange with Russia "in the near future".
In Ukraine, foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said Kyiv was "interested in finding out what the Russians and Americans really want."
The content of the talks was on "military and military-political issues," he added, without elaborating.
Shortly after the talks began, Russian forces struck a crowded market in eastern Ukraine with cluster munitions, killing at least seven people and wounding 15, the Donetsk region's Governor Vadym Filashkin said.
Umerov said he would prepare a report for Zelenskiy, and talks were expected to continue tomorrow, a source familiar with the matter said.
Photographs released earlier in the day by the United Arab Emirates' foreign ministry showed the three delegations sitting around a U-shaped table, with US officials seated at the centre, including special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Major differences remain on key issues
Trump's administration has pushed both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the four-year-old war, but the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of talks with U.S. officials.
The most sensitive issues are Moscow's demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe's largest, which sits in a Russian-occupied area.
Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops out of all of the Donetsk region, including a belt of heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine's strongest defences, as a precondition for any deal.
It also wants international recognition that land seized in the invasion belongs to Russia.
Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected any unilateral pullback of its forces.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said today that Russian troops would keep fighting until Kyiv made "decisions" that could bring the war to an end.
Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine's national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion.
Military analysts have said that Russian forces have gained about 1.5% of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024.
Polls show that the majority of Ukrainians oppose a deal that hands Russia land.
The first round of talks was held in the UAE last month, marking the first direct public negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
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Around 55,000 Ukrainian troops have been killed since the start of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, President Volodymyr Zelensky said today, adding a "great number" were also missing in action.
"In Ukraine, officially, on the battlefield, the number of soldiers killed is 55,000. And there are a great number Ukraine lists as missing," he said in an interview with French TV network France 2, which translated his comments.
At least seven killed and eight injured in Donetsk, governor says
Meanwhile, at least seven people have been killed and eight more injured in Russian attacks in the town of Druzhkivka in the Ukraine-controlled frontline region of Donetsk in the east, according to the regional governor.
Russia shelled the town with cluster munitions, targeting the market, and dropped two aerial bombs, Vadym Filashkin said on the Telegram messaging app.
There was no immediate comment from Russia on the attacks. Both Moscow and Kyiv deny they are targeting civilians in the war that started with Russia's invasion in 2022.
Ukraine can use €90bn loan to buy weapons from EU allies
EU countries on Wednesday agreed Ukraine could use a new €90 billion loan to buy a greater share of weapons from close allies like Britain, if those countries contribute financially, officials said.
The EU said in a statement key allies could gain more access if they pay "a fair and proportionate financial contribution to the costs arising from borrowing".
The agreement on the conditions for the mammoth loan should pave the way for Kyiv to get desperately-needed funds in coming months as it faces a budget shortfall four years into Russia's war.
