Russia has shown no sign of accepting a cease-fire along the current front lines, an option Kyiv and Western governments have called for. Analysts say Moscow has used previous talks to buy time while avoiding concessions. “For the West, negotiations are a means of ending the war; for Putin, they are potentially a means of winning it,” Sam Greene of King’s College London wrote on November 8.

The most immediate territorial dispute is the part of Ukraine’s Donetsk region that Kyiv still holds. The Kremlin says Russian control over all of the Donbas is a prerequisite for peace and threatens to take the remaining area by force. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Kyiv must not give up territory its forces have defended. The area includes a “fortress belt” of defenses, and ceding it would leave Ukraine more exposed to future attacks. Russia currently holds about 20 percent of Ukraine, including Crimea, occupied in 2014. Trump suggested the country might end the war in a “little bit different shape,” without specifying what territory he meant.

Trump’s proposed “big, beautiful agreement” could extend beyond Ukraine to European security. His special adviser Jared Kushner, who is due to attend the Abu Dhabi talks with Steve Witkoff, has called for a broader security framework while saying every country’s sovereignty and choices of alliances must be respected. His comments have raised concern in Kyiv and Europe that the continent could be excluded from decisions affecting its own security. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said any agreement requiring implementation would need the EU’s participation, and said on November 9 that Moscow was “pretending to negotiate” while bombing civilians.

The talks also come as winter approaches and Washington’s political calendar shifts. The new US Congress takes office on January 3, creating a short period in which the White House may seek an agreement. But Ukraine’s battlefield performance and strikes on Russian energy and military infrastructure could encourage Kyiv to hold out, while analysts expect Moscow to keep attacking Ukrainian power and other vital infrastructure. Mark Galeotti said he did not expect peace before spring. Greene wrote that Russia may seek to exploit winter hardship and elections in France and Germany before trying to secure its gains by May or June.

The choice of Russia’s delegation leader has also dampened hopes. Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky, a historian and former culture minister, has led earlier Russian negotiating teams, including at the February trilateral meeting in Geneva. Kyiv and Western observers have seen him as a channel for repeating Russian demands rather than making compromises. Former Russian diplomat Boris Bondarev said in 2025: “You want serious negotiations, you send serious people. Medinsky? He's amateur team, second-, third-tier, not to be taken seriously.”