The Kremlin has repeated, on the Sunday before the talks, that the first rounds in Abu Dhabi should be a negotiation of three. Yuri Ushakov, aide to President Putin, told Interfax that Russia, Ukraine and the United States are the right opening format. Asked whether any European country ought to be in the room, he said Russia has working contacts with the Americans. "Therefore, it is logical, of course, that at least the first rounds of negotiations should be held in a trilateral format."
That is the same refusal he gave on Friday, with one courtesy added. Europeans, he said then, might be in Abu Dhabi while the talks are on. They would not sit at the table. They would speak to Ukraine and to the United States on the side. Friday's report carried the blunter version: buy a ticket, do not expect a seat. Sunday's version is the one diplomats will quote, because it claims a sequence. First the three. Europe, if at all, later.
What Kyiv and Europe say they need in the room
Volodymyr Zelensky has said the trilateral meetings are planned for 6 to 10 November, and that he wants Europe involved. Unity, and more pressure on Russia, are his conditions. Ukraine's foreign ministry spokesperson, Heorhii Tykhyi, drew the distinction on Friday that Ushakov is now pressing. Europe will be part of the process, Tykhyi said, and it will not be part of the trilateral group. Security guarantees, a ceasefire and reconstruction cannot be settled, in Kyiv's view, if European states are absent from the argument. What Kyiv wants is a mandate wide enough to speak for the whole European community.
There is no agreed list of who would hold that mandate. Contacts are running through the E5, the group of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland, around foreign minister Andrii Sybiha. The European Commission and the European Council have planned to send a delegation at the start of November. President Alexander Stubb of Finland has said, from a Nordic Council meeting in Helsinki, that European countries would be involved. Ushakov's account of a call with Stubb and Norway's Jonas Gahr Store was that European participation was not discussed. The two versions cannot both describe the same understanding.
Why the empty chairs matter in London
Britain is in the E5. A format that lets London talk to Kyiv and to Washington in the corridors, and keeps London out of the room where a line is drawn on a map, is the format Ushakov is describing. David Miliband has spent the month arguing that Europe should unlock frozen Russian assets and fund Ukraine through 2027. That argument does not require a seat in Abu Dhabi. A ceasefire that Europe is then asked to guarantee, or to pay for, does.
The Abu Dhabi Format, as of Sunday
- Window given by Zelensky: 6 to 10 November, in the United Arab Emirates.
- Moscow: first rounds are Russia, Ukraine and the United States.
- Kyiv: Europe must be in the process, with a mandate for the whole community.
- The E5 channel is Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Poland.
- Europeans may be in the city. Ushakov says they will not be at the first table.
The next five days are for arguing about chairs. The five days after that are the talks themselves, if the window holds. London's interest is to know, before a British minister boards a plane, whether the invitation is to a negotiation or to a waiting room. Sunday's sentence from Ushakov is the Kremlin's answer. It has not yet been tested by who actually sits down.