A first round of talks between US, Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in Abu Dhabi ended this evening, Ukrainian officials said, with new discussions planned for tomorrow.
"The meeting focused on the parameters for ending Russia's war and the further logic of the negotiation process aimed at advancing toward a dignified and lasting peace," Ukraine's chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said on X.
"Additional meetings are scheduled for tomorrow," he added.
Ukraine is under mounting US pressure to reach a peace deal in the war triggered by Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Moscow demanding Kyiv cede its entire eastern industrial area of Donbas before it stops fighting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the territorial dispute would be a central issue at the talks in the United Arab Emirates, which were scheduled to conclude tomorrow.
"The most important thing is that Russia should be ready to end this war, which it started," Mr Zelensky said in a statement on the Telegram app, adding he was in regular contact with the Ukrainian delegation but it was too early to draw conclusions from today's talks.
"We'll see how the conversation goes tomorrow and what the outcome will be."
The negotiations come a day after Mr Zelensky held talks with US President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, which yielded no immediate results.
Watch: Putin welcomes US envoys for late-night talks in Moscow
The tripartite talks unfold against a backdrop of intensified Russian strikes on Ukraine's energy system that have cut power and heating to major cities like Kyiv, as temperatures hover well below freezing.
The head of Ukraine's top private power producer, Maxim Timchenko, said the situation was nearing a "humanitarian catastrophe" and that Ukraine needs a ceasefire that halts attacks on energy.
Ukraine's energy minister said yesterday that Ukraine's power grid had endured its most difficult day since a widespread blackout in November 2022, when Russia first began bombing energy infrastructure.
Russian President Vladimir Putin's demand that Ukraine surrender the 20% it still holds of the Donetsk region of the Donbas, about 5,000 sq km, has proven a major stumbling block to a breakthrough deal.
Mr Zelensky refuses to give up land that Russia has not been able to capture in four years of grinding, attritional warfare.
Polls show little appetite among Ukrainians for territorial concessions.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Russia's insistence on Ukraine yielding all of Donbas was "a very important condition".
A source close to the Kremlin said Russia considers a so-called "Anchorage formula", which Russia says was agreed between Mr Trump and Mr Putin at a summit in Alaska last August, would hand Russia control of all of Donbas and freeze the current front lines elsewhere in Ukraine's east and south.
Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Moscow said in 2022 it was annexing after referendums rejected by Kyiv and western nations as bogus.
Most countries recognise Donetsk as part of Ukraine.
Watch: Territorial issues not yet resolved, says Zelensky from Davos
Security guarantees agreed, Zelensky says
Mr Zelensky said yesterday in Davos that the Abu Dhabi talks would be the first trilateral meetings involving Ukrainian and Russian envoys and US mediators since the war began.
Last year Russian and Ukrainian delegations had their first face-to-face meeting since 2022 when they met in Istanbul.
A top Ukrainian military intelligence officer also had talks with US and Russian delegations in Abu Dhabi in November.
Ukraine has sought robust security guarantees from western allies in the event of a peace deal to prevent Russia, which has shown little interest in ending the war, from invading again.
Mr Zelensky said on Friday that a deal on US security guarantees for Kyiv was ready, and that he was only waiting on Mr Trump for a specific date and place to sign it.
For its part, Russia has floated the idea of using the bulk of nearly $5 billion of Russian assets frozen in the United States to fund a recovery of Russian-occupied territory inside Ukraine.
Ukraine, backed by European allies, demands that Russia pay it reparations.
Asked about Russia's idea, Mr Zelensky dismissed it as "nonsense".
Russia says it wants a diplomatic solution but will keep working to achieve its goals by military means as long as a negotiated solution remains elusive.
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