Ukraine, US and Russia meet for first joint talks to stop the war

Hope were high but expectations low last night as envoys from Ukraine, Russia and the United States met together for the first time.

The Kremlin crushed optimism by vowing never to budge from its demand for the whole of the Donbas territory in eastern Ukraine.

Negotiators from the three countries were meeting in United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi – the first time they have held trilateral talks to try to end the war since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. 

But it was not even clear if the bitterly divided Moscow and Kyiv delegations would be in the same room. 

Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House envoy Steve Witkoff are the middlemen hoping to broker a deal after hundreds of thousands of deaths. 

President Trump – who only yesterday renewed his boast that he will end the war – insisted both Ukraine and Russia 'want to make a deal'.

Yet even as the talks got under way, Putin ordered military strikes plunging Ukraine into its deepest energy crisis of the four-year war, targeting power and heating to major cities including Kyiv amid minus 10C conditions.

The Russian president is determined that any deal will see him given the Donbas, even though his troops have failed to win it through nearly 50 months of grinding warfare.

But Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky has ruled out surrendering land. He appeared cautiously optimistic about the outcome of the talks, describing the meetings – expected to last two days – as 'a step', but fell short of calling it a positive one. 

A source close to the Kremlin said Moscow considers that Trump and agreed in Alaska last year that Russia could control all of Donbas and freeze the current front lines elsewhere in Ukraine's east and south.

The other big issue at the talks is what the US would do if Russia were to invade Ukraine again.