Reuters: New talks will also be in Abu Dhabi – then possibly in Moscow or Kyiv
Ukraine, Russia, and the United States negotiate in the UAE (Photo: Special Envoy Steve Witkoff / EPA)

After two days of meetings between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, new talks are scheduled for the same location, an unnamed U.S. official told Reuters. He hopes that further meetings will follow, possibly in Moscow or Kyiv, which the US believes should precede the talks at the level of leaders.

The source, who spoke to journalists immediately after the talks, said that new discussions are expected next Sunday, February 1, in Abu Dhabi.

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"We saw a lot of respect in the room between the parties because they were really looking to find solutions. We got to real granular detail and [we feel] that next Sunday will be, God willing, another meeting where we push this deal towards its final culmination," the official said.

As for what will happen after the next talks in Abu Dhabi, the official expressed hopes for further meetings, possibly in Moscow or Kyiv.

"Those sorts of meetings have to happen, in our view, before we get a bilateral between [the Russian dictator] and Putin and [president] Zelenskyy, or a trilateral with Putin, Zelenskyy and president Trump. But I don't think we're so far away from that," the source said.

After the talks in the UAE, the president Zelenskyy said that the US raised the issue of "possible formats for approving the parameters for ending the war and the necessary security circumstances for this."

In this regard, the American official said that the proposed security protocols are considered by many to be "very, very strong."

According to him, representatives of Ukraine and "many of the national security advisors of all the European countries" have reviewed these documents, and each of them has stated that "they've never seen security protocols this robust." This includes NATO representatives, such as the Alliance's secretary general Mark Rutte, the official said.

He did not give any other details.

Meanwhile, the US president's special envoy Steve Witkoff said that at the talks in Abu Dhabi, the parties planned to continue communication next week in the same city. However, he did not provide a date for the new meeting. The official also said that the January 23-24 talks "very constructive."