The Ukraine-Russia negotiations, mediated by the US, have concluded. Russia announced a major prisoner exchange, but the details will be discussed later / The American negotiators are going to Moscow, then to Dublin

U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said on Wednesday, at the end of trilateral negotiations in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, that the talks had been “very substantive”, even though they had been “quite difficult”, reports The Guardian. Russian negotiators, for their part, announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed on a large-scale prisoner exchange, although Kushner said he hoped to secure “the largest release of detainees on humanitarian grounds” during a Thursday meeting with Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

Jared Kushner announced that he would travel to Moscow, together with Steve Witkoff, for a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in order to “review what was discussed today and try to make progress on some of the issues addressed”. Subsequently, the U.S. envoy will travel to Dublin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and further discuss the proposals presented during the talks.

Kushner also said that he hoped to “finalize the aspects related to humanitarian aid” and secure “the largest release of detainees on humanitarian grounds” during tomorrow’s meeting with Putin.

He said that the U.S. was also working to see whether the Europeans could be included in the direct negotiations, so that they would become multilateral, welcoming the discussions already under way with European partners, including the EU, NATO, France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.

Kushner specified that the key issues discussed concerned “post-war security” and “security guarantees”, as well as “conflict avoidance” and monitoring any future ceasefire.

However, he acknowledged that “territorial issues... will be the most difficult”.

The head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, said that the dialogue would continue and announced that Russia and Ukraine had agreed on a large-scale exchange of prisoners of war. According to him, the central topic of the discussions in Abu Dhabi was the creation of a new security architecture in Europe.

“We agreed in principle on a new large-scale prisoner exchange, the specific parameters of which will be announced in the near future,” he said, following the discussions between Russia, the United States and Ukraine held in Abu Dhabi, according to Tass.

Medinsky claimed that Moscow and Washington had reached some understandings, but that negotiations would continue on the remaining issues.

The Russian official rejected the direct participation of European states, saying that Moscow had received no peace initiatives or concrete proposals from them. In contrast, Ukrainian negotiator David Arahamia spoke of favorable momentum and said that a solution could be found by the end of the year, provided that the talks were multilateral and also included the Europeans.