U.S., Russia, and Ukraine Lock Horns in Abu Dhabi: The Last Stand of Globalist Diplomacy

ABU DHABI, UAE — In what could be the most consequential foreign policy maneuver of the year, American envoys, Russian generals, and Kyiv’s negotiators sat down today in Abu Dhabi for the first trilateral talks since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine — a high-stakes confrontation engineered by the United States and its increasingly tenuous bid to broker peace on terms that preserve Western interests.

The delegations assembled after a late-night sit-down in Moscow Thursday when President Vladimir Putin met with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner. Moscow insisted the talks would go forward only if territorial issues — the sticking point of the entire conflict — were on the table.

Trump’s team is playing bold, but the real power in the room isn’t Washington, Brussels, or Kyiv: it’s Moscow. Russia’s delegation to Abu Dhabi is led not by career diplomats but by Admiral Igor Kostyukov, head of Russia’s military intelligence, signaling Russia’s determination to drive negotiations from strength, not weakness.

The Western media likes to spin these talks as a “historic first” — but the truth is far harsher. Russia is forcing the debate where it counts: on who controls Ukrainian land. Moscow has publicly stated there can be no durable settlement without Ukraine withdrawing from key portions of the Donbas region — territory that Kyiv still holds after four brutal years of war.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, fresh from a Davos meeting with Trump where both men called the engagement “positive,” said the territorial question would dominate discussions in Abu Dhabi. But Kyiv’s refusal to cede ground has hardened Russia’s stance and undermined Western claims that a peace deal is within easy reach.

President Trump, determined to wrap up what many see as the longest foreign war in American memory, has thrown his weight behind these talks — dispatching high-level figures like Witkoff and Kushner to the negotiating table. U.S. officials publicly say they hope the discussions will deliver “security guarantees” for Ukraine and a path to peace.

But behind the scenes, there’s a stark reality: Europe has faded as a leader in this conflict, fracturing under its own internal divisions and leaving the United States to pick up the diplomatic pieces. Zelenskyy himself has criticized European inertia even as American strategists push for a negotiated end to the war.

From Capitol Times viewpoint, these talks should be understood not as noble peacemaking, but as an effort by globalist institutions and their diplomatic class to forge an outcome acceptable to all powers — sometimes at the expense of clear national interests.

Whether any agreement emerges from Abu Dhabi, and what that agreement would mean for U.S. security, Ukrainian sovereignty, and Russia’s geopolitical ambitions, remains to be seen. What is unmistakable is this: the world is watching a tectonic shift in power, where strength — and not mere diplomacy — will decide the future of Eastern Europe.