Russia has formally named the officials who will represent it at the next round of US-mediated trilateral talks on the Ukraine war, scheduled to open in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov announced the composition of the delegation to the Interfax news agency on Saturday, setting out a team drawn directly from the senior ranks of the Russian state and cleared at the highest level of the country’s security apparatus.
Peskov confirmed that the officials taking part had participated in an operational meeting convened by President Vladimir Putin with members of the Security Council one day earlier. That session, held in Moscow on Friday, was attended by members of the delegation and addressed both the upcoming Abu Dhabi negotiations and measures to ensure and enhance Russia’s food security.
The delegation is led by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, whose role as head of Moscow’s team was confirmed earlier in the week. He is joined by two deputy foreign ministers, Sergey Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, alongside Igor Kostyukov, head of Russia’s military intelligence agency, the GRU, and Yury Zhigarlovsky, deputy head of the Russian General Staff’s Main Operational Directorate. Peskov added that Yury Ushakov, the presidential aide for foreign policy, would be “overseeing the upcoming negotiations.”
The inclusion of intelligence and military leadership alongside diplomatic officials signals the institutional weight Moscow has attached to the process. In a statement quoted during Friday’s Security Council meeting, Putin thanked the leadership of the United Arab Emirates for supporting efforts to find a settlement to the Russia-Ukraine war and for its assistance on humanitarian issues, underlining the role the Emirati capital has come to play as a venue for the negotiations.
Abu Dhabi will host the latest round of trilateral talks mediated by the United States beginning Tuesday. It is a familiar setting. Of the three previous Washington-mediated rounds held earlier this year, the first two took place in the Emirati capital on January 23-24 and February 4-5, while the third was held in Geneva on February 17-18.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian side outlined the shape of its negotiating team on Friday. David Arakhamia, parliamentary leader of the ruling Servant of the People faction, told The Kyiv Independent online newspaper that Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s Foreign Intelligence Service, would lead the country’s delegation in Abu Dhabi. The team, he said, would also include himself; Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office; Serhii Kyslytsia, first deputy head of the Presidential Office; and Dmytro Lytvyn, communications adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
With both sides having confirmed their delegations, attention now turns to the talks themselves and to the oversight arrangements each government has put in place. Moscow has placed the process under Ushakov’s supervision following direct preparation by the president and the Security Council, while Kiev has entrusted its team to the head of its foreign intelligence service. The full report on the Russian announcement was carried by TRT World at https://www.trtworld.com/article/fb7931cc3d99.