Ukraine sees ‘progress’ in latest talks with Russia despite ongoing attacks

Ukraine’s foreign minister described the Russian officials involved in the new rounds of talks, which resume Sunday in the United Arab Emirates, as much more serious than before.

By David L. Stern and Anastacia Galouchka, The Washington Post

Updated January 28, 2026 at 11:55 a.m. EST

Pedestrians walk past a residential building with a patriotic mural depicting a Ukrainian soldier, in Kyiv on Wednesday. (Sergei Gapon/AFP/Getty Images)

KYIV — Ukraine’s top diplomat cited “progress” in the latest round of talks with Russia held in the United Arab Emirates, saying that Moscow had sent more serious negotiators this time around. The talks, which include the United States, are set to resume Sunday.

On Tuesday, however, Russia’s daily onslaught in Ukraine included an attack on a passenger train, killing at least five people — a rare occurrence in the nearly four-year-old conflict. Ukraine is also hoping to soon nail down U.S. security guarantees before it tackles some of the thornier issues in the negotiations.

Ukrainian and many Western officials are still highly skeptical that Moscow is serious about ending the conflict, which will mark its fourth anniversary next month — especially as Russia continues to bombard Ukrainian civilian infrastructure and sacrifice tens of thousands of soldiers every month to eke out minimal gains along the front line. 

But Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha — echoing other officials — said in an interview published in Ukrainian media late Tuesday that the improvement in the talks could in part be credited to “a qualitative change in the composition of the Russian delegation,” which included members of the military and intelligence services.

“These are different people, and there were no more pseudo-historical lectures. The talks were very focused,” he said. Previous Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul were dismissed by Kyiv as time-wasting exercises with low-level mediators. 

Still, he said the “most sensitive issues” were still under contention — namely, who would control Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region and the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe.

He added that Ukraine was ready to sign a treaty for security guarantees with the United States that would have to be ratified by Congress so that it is “legally binding in nature.” 

But Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also encountered difficulties in persuading President Donald Trump to sign such an agreement. 

On Sunday, during a trip to Lithuania, Zelensky said that the document was “100 percent ready” and that Kyiv was “waiting for our partners to confirm the date and place when we will sign it.”

In a report published Tuesday in the Financial Times, officials involved in the talks said Trump was pressuring Ukraine to concede territory before he would agree to signing the security agreement.

Washington denied that it was strong-arming Kyiv. A senior U.S. official, following the meetings in Abu Dhabi, said that “President Trump is very open to giving [a security guarantee], but obviously it will depend on what the final arrangements are on a full deal.”

Sybiha also said Zelensky was ready to meet Russian leader Vladimir Putin to resolve these issues. “However, the obstacle in the peace process is, and will remain going forward, Russia,” he said. 

A question also hangs over which countries would send troops to enforce a peace deal, once it goes into effect. Sybiha confirmed that there would be European forces.

“But of course, this can only happen under the condition of an American ‘backstop,’” he said, adding that “there will be no American troops.” 

Residents remove debris from balconies of their apartments damaged during overnight Russian drone and missile strikes, in Zaporizhzhia on Wednesday. (Serhii Chalyi/Reuters)

On Wednesday, Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Putin was ready to meet Zelensky in Moscow, for which “the Russian Federation is ready to guarantee his safety.”

For their part, Russian officials expressed a degree of optimism over the talks. 

“Overall, the fact that a whole range of complex issues related to the settlement are being discussed at the expert level can already be considered progress, the beginning of such a dialogue. Further developments will depend on the constructiveness of the interlocutors,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday in reference to the Abu Dhabi meetings.

Meanwhile, three drones bombarded a train traveling in the eastern Kharkiv region late Tuesday, with one of the drones striking a passenger carriage directly, local officials said. It was a further escalation of Russia’s campaign against Ukraine’s civilian population this winter, in which Moscow’s drones and missiles have targeted the country’s energy system, plunging hundreds of thousands into cold and darkness.

 

Service members in a tank unit of the 93rd Kholodnyi Yar Separate Mechanized Brigade of the Ukrainian armed forces warm up while they wait for a mission at a position near a front line, in the Donetsk region on Monday. (Serhii Korovainyi/Reuters)

Amid the ongoing wrangling over territory, Moscow has claimed that it was advancing all along the front line in eastern Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly stated that any peace deal should include the Ukrainian surrender of the rest of the Donetsk region.

On Tuesday, Gen. Valery Gerasimov, head of the Russian military, said its forces had captured 17 settlements and close to 200 square miles in January. 

But the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said that the Russian military command continued “to present demonstrable lies and exaggerations about Russian battlefield gains” to push Ukraine and its Western allies “to concede to the demands” that Russia is “unable to achieve militarily.” 

“Russian military officials have repeatedly presented inflated claims of Russian advances across the frontline in recent weeks,” ISW wrote in comments published Wednesday. Open-source think tanks have put the amount of territory Russia has taken in January at nearly 60 square miles. 

It added that, counter to Moscow’s claims, the Russian military “would need to expend significant amounts of resources, time, and personnel” to seize the rest of Donetsk, which, given its current rate of advancement, would not happen “before August 2027.” 

Moscow’s grinding advance forward has exacted a devastating toll on both countries’ armies — but far heavier for Russia.

On Tuesday, the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington said that Russian casualties — dead, wounded and missing — since the beginning of the war totaled 1.2 million soldiers, with about 325,000 killed. 

Rescuers carry the coffin of their colleague Oleksandr Zibrov during a farewell ceremony in Kyiv on Wednesday. Zibrov, a firefighter-rescuer in the 24th State Fire and Rescue Unit, died more than two weeks after sustaining severe injuries in a Russian strike in Kyiv on Jan. 9 while carrying out his duties. (Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images)

The number represents “more losses than any major power in any war since World War II,” CSIS said in a report published on its website. “After seizing the initiative in 2024, Russian forces have advanced at an average rate of between 15 and 70 meters per day in their most prominent offensives, slower than almost any major offensive campaign in any war in the last century.” 

Ukraine by comparison has had around 600,000 total losses, according to the report, though neither country gives official tolls. 

Peskov on Wednesday dismissed the CSIS estimate and suggested instead relying on the information provided by the Defense Ministry.

Natalia Abbakumova in Riga, Latvia, and John Hudson in Washington contributed