Russian and Ukrainian envoys will discuss territorial issues and proposals for ceasefire monitoring in the United Arab Emirates this week, according to a senior U.S. official, as a new round of negotiations to end the war gets underway.

The official, who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity Monday, said there had been daily discussions with both Russia and Ukraine in the run-up to the trilateral summit and expressed cautious optimism representatives would make progress over two days of scheduled talks in Abu Dhabi starting Tuesday.

The meeting marks a resumption of talks put on hold in February when the Trump administration’s focus shifted to the Iran war. And they represent the first round of negotiations on Ukraine since President Donald Trump’s Republican Party lost control of Congress in U.S. midterm elections.

The senior U.S. official on Monday said the first session would focus on ceasefire monitoring and post-war security, including mechanisms for security consultations, crisis communications and de-escalation measures. A second session would touch on territorial issues, with the official saying that both sides had shown flexibility in recent days, without providing details.

The official said the U.S. team had asked Russia for its consent for the United States and Europe to provide security guarantees for Ukraine similar to those provided under Articles 4 and 5 of the NATO treaty, in which an attack on any member country is treated as an attack on the alliance as a whole. Ukraine is not a member of NATO.

Trump’s resumed efforts to end the war have reignited worries in Kyiv and allied capitals that the U.S. will try to force territorial concessions or changes to Europe’s security architecture. Trump told reporters last week, after meeting Putin envoy Kirill Dmitriev, that there could be a “big agreement” that is “going to involve more than Ukraine” and “might involve all of Europe,” without elaborating.

Still, despite the new diplomacy, Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly stuck to longstanding demands for Ukraine to surrender broad swaths of territory and to rule out ever joining NATO — demands rejected by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

European nations want Russia to halt its war against Ukraine before entertaining any discussion about the continent’s broader security architecture, people familiar with the matter said. The U.S. official on Monday cast doubt on existing security arrangements, saying that negotiators would need to build a new framework without specifying what that could entail.

Putin agreed to resume the trilateral talks on a potential peace deal at a Kremlin meeting with Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in October. He also held phone talks with Finland’s President Alexander Stubb and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre last month, the first direct contact between Putin and top European leaders allied with Kyiv since July last year.

Russia has increased missile and drone attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure ahead of winter, disrupting power, water and heating supply in cities, including Kyiv. Ukraine has renewed attacks on Russia’s oil refineries, defying calls from Trump to avoid targeting Moscow’s energy infrastructure to ease pressure on global fuel prices.

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(With assistance from Tony Halpin.)

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