The mood cooled from the first day to the second. On Tuesday, with negotiations lasting four and a half hours, officials on the ground in Abu Dhabi who were familiar with the talks described them as “constructive.” The best they could muster on Wednesday, when the session broke up after just two hours, was that the exchange had been “neutral.”
In truth, few on the Ukrainian side ever believed this week’s resumption of face-to-face negotiations would deliver a breakthrough. The biggest announcement concerned the non-trivial matter of a planned prisoner exchange — which Kushner said would be the biggest in the war so far, but on even this they failed to announce the final agreed numbers.
Yet despite the muted rhetoric, the meeting in the air-conditioned environs of a secure government guest house — where staff were constantly on hand to provide coffee, sandwiches and even pizza — was nevertheless a significant moment in the stop-start journey toward peace after nearly five years of war.
Here’s what you need to know about where things stand.
What did they discuss?
Everything. According to Kushner, there was no significant topic that was not raised over the two days. The question of territory, he said, would clearly be “the hardest” to resolve. According to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Kyiv’s negotiators scored a major win on day one by convincing the Americans to accept their analysis of where the front line stands, and just how much less Ukrainian territory Russia has conquered than Moscow claims.
It’s hard to see a quick resolution on that issue, although privately U.S. officials say both sides have shown some flexibility on how to settle territorial claims. Zelenskyy still insists, and it seems the American mediators agree, that matters relating to the fate of Ukrainian land can only be discussed at the level of leaders. That kind of meeting is still very far away. “Clearly, there’s not great trust or love between the leaders,” Kushner said.