Russia and Ukraine have signaled a willingness to compromise behind closed doors over the future of the eastern Donetsk region, a U.S. official said Monday, despite both sides maintaining their longstanding positions publicly.
"Obviously, the public positions remain the same, which is Russia says they want all Donetsk, and Ukraine is saying let’s do the contact line, but both sides have shown a little bit of flexibility privately,” the official told reporters on the condition of anonymity.
"We’re going to start the discussion about what that can be,” the official added.
Russian, Ukrainian, and U.S. representatives are scheduled to convene in Abu Dhabi for a renewed round of trilateral peace negotiations starting Tuesday.
The official said the territorial question cannot be settled before post-war security arrangements are defined.
"They will not solve the Donetsk issue and the territorial issue until they know what their security architecture is going to be after the war,” the official said. "We’re not going to be able to finalize one without the other.”
"If both parties know how to finish, they have to know what they’re finishing into,” the official added.
The official said the U.S. has asked Russia to allow Washington to give Ukraine security guarantees modeled on NATO’s Articles 4 and 5, with NATO providing the same.
"What they would be getting would be effectively very similar to NATO,” the official said.
"We’ll see what President (Donald) Trump decides if he wants to grant it. Getting a U.S. security guarantee is a really, really big deal,” the official added. "President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy will have to ask him, and then he’ll have to agree to do that.”
The official said the US has a list of "seven, eight issues” for the sides to discuss, but added: "We don’t expect to resolve these questions in Abu Dhabi, but we want to get that process started again.”
The official said Germany, France, the U.K., Italy, NATO, and the EU will also join the talks in Abu Dhabi.
"This is the first time I feel like we see real desire on the Russian side to finish,” the official added.
The official said U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner could travel again soon to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Russia and Ukraine last held U.S.-mediated peace talks early this year, with three rounds taking place in January and February in Abu Dhabi and Geneva.
In August 2025, after a Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, Witkoff said Russia had agreed that the U.S. and European countries could offer Ukraine Article 5-like security guarantees. Last December, after talks in Berlin, U.S. officials said Washington had offered such guarantees to Kyiv.
