Putin is not ready to make peace in Abu Dhabi

Résumé détaillé

The Russian leader still believes he can outlast Western support for Ukraine.

As the Russian-Ukrainian war, which long ago entered a phase of attrition, grinds on, Russia, Ukraine and the United States began a new round of US-brokered trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, on November 10. The talks are scheduled to continue on November 11.

The talks follow a successful humanitarian operation in Oleshky, a southern Ukrainian town that has been occupied by Russian forces since 2022.

Starting in December 2025, Oleshky experienced a food crisis that worsened dramatically in the summer of this year. Over the years under Russian occupation, its population declined from 25,000 to 2,000 people, and the food crisis threatened the survival of those who remained. In the summer, however, Ukrainian and Russian intelligence services agreed to work on a local ceasefire in order to evacuate Oleshky’s inhabitants – if they wanted to leave – either to Ukraine or to Russia.

The humanitarian mission went surprisingly smoothly. Both sides stood by the ceasefire agreement, hundreds of people were successfully evacuated (mostly to Ukraine) from the long-suffering town, and it was extraordinary to see the Ukrainian and Russian human rights representatives, Dmytro Lubinets and Yana Lantratova, coordinating the humanitarian mission peacefully and with mutual respect.

Can this successful mission lay the groundwork for – or at least contribute to – progress in the Abu Dhabi peace negotiations brokered by the US between Russia and Ukraine? Several factors suggest that this is unlikely.

One immediate indicator is that the success of the mission in Oleshky was driven not by Moscow’s desire for peace but by its willingness to pander to Donald Trump’s vanity against the background of his animosity towards Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

It has long been known that Trump wanted to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, despite his claims that he has ended countless wars around the world, Trump is unlikely to receive this prestigious…

The…

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