Ukraine reports ‘huge progress’ in peace talks with Russia

Ukraine’s chief negotiator Rustem Umerov said Wednesday that "huge progress" has been made in ongoing peace negotiations with Russia regarding issues of "security and prosperity."

During a joint news conference in the Emirati capital, Abu Dhabi, following the latest round of US-mediated Russia-Ukraine peace talks, Umerov thanked US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for their work in the peace talks, saying discussions had been held in different formats during the last year, including with European participation.

"There is a huge progress going on on the securities, prosperity issues, and we will be talking about this later on," said Umerov, head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service. He did not provide details.

David Arakhamia, parliamentary leader of Ukraine's ruling Servant of the People faction, who addressed the news conference, described the trilateral talks held over the past two days as "one of the toughest," hoping that an upcoming prisoner swap between Moscow and Kyiv, which Kushner announced earlier at the news conference, will involve a "big" number of people.

Arakhamia said they are close to expanding negotiations from a trilateral to a multilateral format, while also noting "big progress" on other issues, which he said they currently cannot disclose.

"And I encourage you guys (Witkoff and Kushner) to visit Moscow and then come back to us to Dublin, and then … have a second session and … announce the date for the next session (of peace talks) as soon as possible, because I think that we have a good momentum to bring the solution before the new year comes," Arakhamia added.

The remarks by the Ukrainian officials came after two days of US-mediated trilateral talks hosted in Abu Dhabi, starting Tuesday, which marked the first direct three-way peace sessions since discussions held in Geneva in February.

At the joint news conference, Kushner told reporters that he and Witkoff will travel to Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, where he said they would "finalize the numbers" for a prisoner swap agreed upon following Tuesday and Wednesday's negotiations.

Meanwhile, responding to a question about why the talks were "tough," Arakhamia said it was caused by the "very strict directives" the Russian delegation came with to the negotiations, which he said provided "no space" for compromise.

"So that is why it's tough, because normally when you come you have a corridor of different choices,” he said. “That's why it was like really tough.”

Separately, Sergiy Kyslytsya, first deputy head of Ukraine's Presidential Office, said that neither side raised ultimatums during the negotiations.