Second round of peace talks held in Abu Dhabi as Russian airstrike on Donetsk region market kills 7

The second round of trilateral peace talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine were held in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, with all parties agreeing to continue negotiations on Thursday, Russia news agency TASS reported, though no official progress statement has yet been released.

Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council head, Rustem Umerov, who is also Ukraine’s lead negotiator at the talks, confirmed earlier on Wednesday that the second round of talks had begun, with teams due to split into separate groups to compartmentalise negotiations before holding a “joint synchronisation of positions”.

Umerov said that throughout the process, the delegation would be updating Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who announced on Tuesday that Kyiv would be adjusting the mandate of Ukraine’s negotiating team in Abu Dhabi in light of devastating Russian airstrikes on the country’s energy infrastructure during record low winter temperatures.

On 23 and 24 January, Russian and Ukrainian delegations met in Abu Dhabi for the first time with US mediation, after which Zelensky said US security guarantees had been agreed upon and were ready for signing, despite noting that a fundamental gap remained between the two sides in their positions on Donbas.

Russian airstrikes against civilian targets in Ukraine continued on Wednesday, with Donetsk region Governor Vadym Filashkin saying that the Russian military had used cluster munitions to strike a busy market in the Donetsk region city of Druzhkivka, killing seven people and injuring at least another 15. 

Filashkin said that the Russian military had also dropped two aerial bombs on Druzhkivka, damaging three multi-storey buildings, three private houses and an industrial site, adding that the crime’s consequences had been carefully documented and that its perpetrators would “be held responsible for everything”.