Abu Dhabi hosts first Russia-Ukraine-US peace talks (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Hello, welcome. I'm Catherine Yarohanga. We start with peace talks and the war in Ukraine. Top negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the U.S. are heading to Abu Dhabi today. It's the first time all three will have met since Moscow's full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly four years ago. In the past hour, President Zelensky confirmed that territory will be discussed as part of those talks. It comes after President Putin and Mr. Trump's envoys held talks in Moscow, which the Kremlin called useful but very frank. Mr. Trump, who on Thursday met Ukraine's President Zelensky in Davos, has said a deal is reasonably close. Our Russia editor Steve Rosenberg has more.

[00:00:45] Speaker 2: Speeding to the Kremlin, the U.S. envoys. You can see why Vladimir Putin appreciates Donald Trump. He sends his emissaries here to discuss Ukraine and show respect for Russia. And President Putin has just been invited onto Donald Trump's new Board of Peace for settling global conflict, even though he is waging a war. Then there's Greenland, where Donald Trump's quest to take control has allowed Russia to argue that it has the right to do what it wants in Ukraine.

[00:01:21] Speaker 3: You see, one country can take anything if it believes that it is in their favour of their security. Why wouldn't we do the same if we believe that it is in favour of our security? We don't want Ukraine to be a part of NATO. That's why we make what we do in our favour.

[00:01:48] Speaker 2: Then there is another advantage the Kremlin will have identified from the whole Greenland saga, and that is the tension it has sparked between America and her traditional allies in Europe. It's been sowing division in the Western alliance, and that suits Moscow just fine. So you might think that Donald Trump would be rather popular right now with Russians. Not especially. On the streets of Moscow, most of the people we spoke to were suspicious of America's president and ready to give him the cold shoulder. He does one thing one day, the opposite thing the next, Svetlana says. Watching Trump is like being at the circus or the theatre. Russia won't benefit, Oleg says. The kind of things he's doing, the same could be done to us. He's not our ally, Yuliana tells me. To begin with, I thought he was. But Trump's aggressive approach to Venezuela, that was incomprehensible. But the Kremlin isn't criticising the US president. Moscow is enjoying the cracks that have appeared in transatlantic relations due to the course Donald Trump has chosen. Any fracturing of the Western alliance is seen here as making Russia stronger. Steve Rosenberg, BBC News, Moscow.

[00:03:17] Speaker 1: Well, let's go live to Kyiv now and speak to our correspondent there, Sarah Rainsford. So Sarah, the first trilateral talks between these countries, what's expected this time around?

[00:03:31] Speaker 4: Yeah, the first trilateral talks, although we don't know whether all three sides will be around exactly the same table at the same time, there's a lot that's still in doubt. But certainly I think Ukraine is seeing this as a tiny step forward. Kyiv has certainly engaged in Donald Trump's efforts to bring peace here to this country because Ukraine wants peace more than anyone else. But it is pretty sceptical that Vladimir Putin is as committed to ending his full-scale invasion of this country. So I don't think there's huge expectations from this meeting. Certainly I think what Ukraine hopes will be discussed is the issue of security guarantees for this country, something, a deal it believes it's already hammered out with the United States, which is all about what to do if Russia invades again in the future, what the United States will do in terms of military support for Ukraine. So with Washington and Kyiv believing there's some kind of deal on that, what will Russia actually say when it's presented with that deal? That is a big open question. And then of course there is the massive issue of territory. Russia is still insisting that it wants to take from Ukraine parts of the eastern Donbass region that it has failed to take through fighting on the battlefield. It wants Ukraine to hand that over. Ukraine is adamant it will not do that. It's paid a massively high price for holding on to that territory and there's no way that Ukraine intends to hand it over now. So huge sticking points, a lot of tension. I suppose, at least if you're looking to the positive, there is a progress, a process of talks that's taking place and it will move to a further stage today in the UAE.

[00:05:08] Speaker 1: Sarah, thank you. That's our correspondent Sarah Rainsford in Kyiv there. Well, let's now bring in Stephen Blockman, Senior Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies. As we heard there from Sarah, the talks are going to focus on security guarantees and territorial issues. They're not shying away from the big sticking points, are they?

[00:05:30] Speaker 5: Well, these are still the big issues that need to be dealt with, if we can believe at least Mr Trump, who says that 90% of all other concerns have been dealt with. We heard just from your reporter in Kyiv those points. I mean, the de facto loss of occupied regions on the side of Ukraine is already a big ask, but to make a further concession for Russia.

[00:06:02] Speaker 1: And that's the key issue there, isn't it? Because we have seen, I think we might have lost the line to Stephen Blockman. So I think we've managed to get you back, Stephen Blockman. How are you? This is Catherine from the BBC. So I think the line just froze there a minute. But you're talking about possible compromises from Russia, because the point has been that where Ukraine has been willing to negotiate compromise over the last few years, Russia has not moved from its main points.

[00:06:34] Speaker 5: That's right. It has stuck to its maximalist position. And I don't think going by Mr Putin's statements over his Christmas and New Year's resolutions, for example, that total victories were in reach for Russia, that he will back down from those. He seems to have struck a chord with Mr Trump, of course, and that has strengthened his own hand.

[00:07:00] Speaker 1: What if anything could move the dial here when it comes to reaching a peace deal in Ukraine?

[00:07:08] Speaker 5: Well, severe losses on the Russian side haven't helped. I think it's ultimately up to the international pressure and really isolation of Russia. And there, Mr Trump is not helping. The extension of an invitation to Mr Putin to join a board of peace breaks his isolation that the Europeans have tried to maintain in support of Ukraine. So unless there's really an American shift on this, I don't see this going anywhere in 2026.

[00:07:44] Speaker 1: On Thursday, we saw President Zelensky being critical of European countries, saying that they're not doing enough to support Ukraine. The EU, we understand, is not part of these negotiations that will be happening in Abu Dhabi. How significant is that?

[00:08:01] Speaker 5: What the EU as an organisation is, of course, crucial in securing a final deal as far as the lifting of sanctions on Russia is concerned, for example. But it is not at the negotiating table. European nations' leaders, including Keir Starmer or indeed Emmanuel Macron and others, they have been working on the sidelines of the U.S.-led peace process, trying to influence it as best as they could. Cooperation, of course, with Ukraine, but an institutional representation is not there. It will have to be recognised at one point, probably late into that process, to secure the type of concessions that Mr Trump cannot, or Ukraine for that matter, cannot deliver themselves.

[00:08:53] Speaker 1: Stephen Blockmans from the Centre for European Policy Studies. Thank you for joining us on BBC News.