‘When you have no electricity, water, or heating, every day matters’: Ukraine wants to move up trilateral talks with Russia and the U.S. by a week

Ukraine is pushing to move up the three-way talks, which sources had previously said would take place in Abu Dhabi “in mid-November,” by at least a week.

Ukraine persuaded U.S. officials to move up the date, though they did not initially understand why Kyiv was insisting on it, sources who spoke to the Ukrainian news outlet Ukrainska Pravda said.

”They ask, ‘What’s the big deal about moving it by one week?’ And our side explains to them that this week isn’t worth anything right now. But by December, every week will matter. When you have no electricity, water, or heating, every day matters,” a source on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s team told Ukrainska Pravda.

As of the evening of October 25, Russia had not confirmed the rescheduled start date for the talks, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov had previously said the three-way talks would begin “in mid-November” — a week after the U.S. midterm elections. Neither the date nor the location of the talks has been officially announced yet.

Ukraine views it as “the minimum necessary success” that U.S. presidential special envoy Steve Witkoff secured Russia’s agreement to resume negotiations before spring, according to Ukrainska Pravda.

Ukrainian negotiators do not expect a breakthrough at the first three-way meeting and are proceeding on the assumption that it will take at least several rounds “for concrete agreements to emerge.”

A source who spoke to Ukrainska Pravda said a peace agreement “could be put together before the New Year,” though he doubted Russia would agree. “They believe they’ll be able to wear us down this winter,” he said.