Ukraine peace talks set for February 4–5 in Abu Dhabi, says Zelenskyy

Abu Dhabi talks amid fragile ceasefire

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that fresh two-day talks involving envoys from the United States, Russia and Ukraine aimed at ending the war would begin in Abu Dhabi later this week.

“The dates for the next trilateral meetings have been set – February 4 and 5 in Abu Dhabi,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X. “Ukraine is ready for a substantive discussion, and we are interested in ensuring that the outcome brings us closer to a real and dignified end to the war.”

The announcement came as Russian strikes continued across Ukraine. According to AFP, at least two people were killed and seven others injured in attacks overnight and into early Sunday.

One strike involved a drone attack on a maternity hospital in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, which injured two women who were undergoing medical examinations.

“Russians have struck a maternity hospital in Zaporizhzhia,” regional governor Ivan Fedorov said earlier on Sunday in a Telegram post. “The number of victims has already increased to six people,” he later added.

Separately, two people “died due to an enemy UAV strike” in the central city of Dnipro, Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the regional military administration, said on Telegram.

The first round of talks took place in late January but failed to produce progress on the key issue of territory, with Moscow continuing to demand that Kyiv cede more land in eastern Ukraine — a condition the Ukrainian government has rejected, Reuters reported.

Russia said on Friday that it had agreed to a request from US President Donald Trump to halt strikes on Kyiv for one week, until February 1.

Trump said he made the appeal because of the “extreme cold” in Ukraine, while Kremlin officials described the pause as a step intended to support negotiations. Neither Washington nor Moscow specified when the request was made.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed the appeal, saying: “I can say that President Trump did indeed make a personal request to President Putin to refrain from striking Kyiv for a week until February 1 in order to create favourable conditions for negotiations.”

Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure have left thousands of residents in Kyiv without heating during an unusually severe winter. Ukrainian authorities have warned that temperatures could fall as low as minus 30 degrees Celsius in the coming days, with the coldest period expected after February 1.