US officials seek ‘final end’ to Russia-Ukraine war, as Abu Dhabi talks set to continue

US officials have said they are seeking a “final end” to the war between Russia and Ukraine as trilateral talks got under way in Abu Dhabi, the first substantive negotiations between the two countries since February.

The talks, which are set to go into a planned second day on Wednesday, are also the first since the US launched joint strikes with Israel against Iran, and they follow bruising midterm elections that have weakened Donald Trump at home.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who like Vladimir Putin was not in Abu Dhabi, described the discussions on the first day as “constructive and fairly substantive”.

“We discussed in detail the substance of security guarantees for Ukraine and the foundations for their long-term implementation,” he said in a social media post.

Part of the Trump administration’s proposal involves drawing up a new “long-term security architecture” between Russia and Europe, administration officials have said.

European officials are concerned that Russia may stick to its hardline demands that Nato should roll back its military footprint across eastern Europe, which would threaten to leave allies vulnerable to Moscow’s influence at a time of historic tensions with the west.

European officials held separate discussions on Tuesday with representatives from Ukraine and the US, where they agreed “any future arrangements must respect sovereignty, territorial integrity, independent decision-making, and provide credible security guarantees for Ukraine”, according to a joint statement.

European leaders are not convinced Russia intends to negotiate in good faith and want to be involved in discussions, although there are signs of unease about the proliferating strands of peace talks. Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, last week complained about the “disorderly” process of meetings and phone calls that, she argued, weakened Europe’s ability to speak with one voice.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Tuesday it was a goal at some point to expand the Russia-US-Ukraine talks to include other European voices.

“There’s always this concern in Europe that they’re going to be left out, that America’s going to cut some deal with Russia and leave Europe out of the equation. Well, Europe’s at the table. They’re with us,” Rubio told reporters during a visit to Paris, speaking after the UAE talks had finished for the day.

Since his first decade in power, Putin has complained about Nato’s eastward expansion and sought to renegotiate the balance of power between Nato and Russia – but never before have those demands been embraced by a sitting US administration, which has made it clear that it is desperate to get to a deal.

Previewing the discussions, a US administration official said the US would “need Europe at the table” to end the war. He said negotiators could also revive the Nato-Russian council that was suspended after Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, and potentially lift sanctions against Russia to get to a deal.

The US officials also claimed that they had discussed with Russia potential security guarantees to Ukraine similar to Nato’s article 5, which protects member states in case of an attack. Russia has strongly opposed Nato admitting Ukraine or western countries placing troops in Ukraine.

“What they would be getting would be effectively very similar to Nato,” an administration official said.

“Getting a US security guarantee is a really, really big deal,” the official added, saying it would be up to Donald Trump and Ukraine’s Zelenskyy to discuss. “And if he wants to do that, that’s a very, very big deal in terms of resources and funding and military support.”

Critics have expressed scepticism about what may trigger those security guarantees, however, noting that article 5 does not oblige Nato member states to defend others, and that cyber-attacks and other forms of hybrid warfare have blurred the line for what would require a military response.

Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a lead negotiator for the US, described a potential new framework for Europe in general terms on Monday, saying the US would seek “stronger consultation, reliable crisis communications, greater military transparency, and reciprocal measures to reduce escalation risks, while fully respecting the sovereignty and independent decision-making of every nation”.

A European security official said that the US proposal was not yet clear and that they were bracing themselves for the US to pose serious concessions to Russia during the Abu Dhabi consultations.

The EU high representative for foreign policy, Kaja Kallas, told a G7 foreign ministers meeting on Monday: “We already have a European security architecture in place. This includes international agreements under which Russia has undertaken obligations, including with regard to sovereignty and territorial integrity. The problem is that Russia is not respecting these agreements.”

Trump has also said that Ukraine would probably be expected to give up territory in a final deal, and would end with a “little bit different shape”.

After meeting the Kremlin adviser Kirill Dmitriev last week, Trump said he would seek a “big, beautiful agreement” that “might involve all of Europe”. Critics are concerned that Trump and Putin could try to go over the heads of European leaders in order to negotiate a peace that gives serious concessions to Russia.

“There’s a lot of baggage that people in Europe have about this idea,” said a US administration official, pointing specifically to Russia’s 2021 proposal that was viewed as an ultimatum to Nato to get out of eastern Europe.

At that time, Russia issued a list of demands to Nato that included a ban on expansion to new countries including Ukraine, a rollback of troops to its pre-1997 borders, and limits on where it could place missiles. Nato rejected that proposal, and Russia invaded Ukraine less than a month later.

The US administration official said: “We have to build something new that works today … Because if all the old architecture was working well, then we wouldn’t be in this long war. And so obviously something’s not working, and we need to come up with a way that when we end this war, it really is a final end to the war.”