Russia and Ukraine expect to hold talks in Abu Dhabi sometime in November, though no date is set, as the two sides continue to observe a local ceasefire around the Russian-controlled town of Oleshky in Ukraine’s Kherson region.
Yury Ushakov, an aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters that Russia expects to hold trilateral talks with Ukraine and the US in Abu Dhabi sometime after November 4. “The date will be [determined soon],” he said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
For his part, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he hoped the talks would be held between November 6 and November 10 but that he was waiting for confirmation from the US. “We are waiting for the American side, I think that they’ll be ready with all the answers after the elections,” he said, referring to the upcoming November US midterm elections.
Russian and Ukrainian officials also said on Wednesday that the Oleshky ceasefire, meant to get humanitarian aid to the town’s remaining 2,000 residents and evacuate those who want to leave, is still holding. The truce, which began on Tuesday, is meant to last six days.
The comments came a day after Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre held a 90-minute phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, marking the first known talks between Putin and a leader of one of Ukraine’s European allies since French President Emmanuel Macron spoke with the Russian president in July 2025.
In a statement on the call, the Nordic leaders said it was “related to the upcoming meetings to be held in Abu Dhabi” and that they “initiated the call to discuss Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the diplomatic efforts to end the war and promote peace and stability in Europe.”
While there are moves toward diplomacy, Zelensky has signaled that Ukraine’s new peace-deal proposal would still include NATO Article 5-style security guarantees, an idea Russia has repeatedly rejected, and Moscow has signaled it won’t back down on its core demands.
The Kremlin statement on the Stubb-Støre call said that Putin “assessed the current situation in the Ukraine conflict zone, reiterating its root causes and emphasizing that a just and lasting peace would be possible only if the interests of the Russian Federation are considered in full and without any conditions attached.”
