Putin wants peace talks. He doesn’t want peace.

WASHINGTON—Next week, Russian, Ukrainian, and US negotiators will meet in Abu Dhabi for the first time in months, and observers are asking whether this suggests the prospects are growing for a negotiated end to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine. The question is understandable, but only for those who ignore Russian President Vladimir Putin’s objective in Ukraine—establishing effective political control over the country—and his principal method for achieving that goal—undermining Western and especially American support for Ukraine. For Putin, this goal and the means to achieve it are complicated by US President Donald Trump’s stated objective since returning to the Oval Office, which is to establish a stable peace in which Ukraine is sovereign and secure. But Putin has one advantage in achieving his goal, at least with the United States. Trump shows uncharacteristic deference toward Putin that makes him reluctant to do what he has said he would do to achieve this peace settlement: put pressure on the side that rejects reasonable proposals to end the fighting. Since the spring of 2025, Trump has offered at least a half dozen proposals to end or limit the fighting. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has agreed to each one, and Putin has deflected or rejected them all. This includes the most recent proposal, which US Special Envoy Steve Witkoff brought to Putin in Saint Petersburg in October. That brings us to Abu Dhabi. For unclear reasons, over the past few weeks Team Trump has taken several steps that make it easier for Moscow to continue its aggression in Ukraine and more difficult for Ukraine to defend itself against Russian attacks. The gifts to Putin include finalizing a deal to resume Russian diesel shipments to the US in violation of US sanctions policy, waiving the sanctions in the recently passed Lindsey Graham sanctions bill, turning off the intelligence provided to Ukraine by the Starlink and Starshield satellite systems, and entertaining Putin’s proposal for a three-way summit with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping. Not surprisingly, the Kremlin has greeted all these concessions with great enthusiasm. But Putin has not offered a single concession of his own that could lead to a stable peace, which is Trump’s stated goal. And the administration’s “peace offerings” to Russia sparked strenuous bipartisan criticism in Congress. So, in turning down Witkoff in Moscow, Putin needed to offer something. That something was a procedural accommodation: Russia agreed to a trilateral working-level meeting in Abu Dhabi. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov showed the limitations of this step when he announced that Moscow would offer no new concessions; its terms for “peace” would not change. The Kremlin underscored this when it named former Russian Minister of Culture Vladimir Medinsky as the head of the delegation. Medinsky has been involved in most of the talks with Ukraine dating back to the first sessions in March 2022; those negotiations were unsuccessful. That contrasts with last winter’s talks in Abu Dhabi, which involved intelligence and defense officials discussing important but technical aspects of troop dispositions as part of a ceasefire. Any realistic expectations for the upcoming Abu Dhabi talks should therefore be very modest. They are only taking place because Putin wants to give Trump a reason to continue to distance himself from Ukraine. This motivation also explains why the Kremlin chose to include First Lady Melania Trump as the intermediary in plans to evacuate beleaguered Ukrainians from Oleshky, a town near Kherson where Russian forces had created a humanitarian crisis months ago by preventing the supply of food, fuel, and medical supplies. Moscow knew it had to resolve the crisis it had created because global attention was starting to focus on this war crime. Why not give the first lady the leading role in this drama? In the wake of Putin’s rejection of the peace proposal Witkoff offered last month, it seems that Team Trump chose to focus the Abu Dhabi talks on a new security architecture for Europe, a legitimate subject when considering a possible end to the war in Ukraine. The administration announced that it had put together an approach that all sides could accept. And to their credit, Witkoff and his fellow special envoy, Jared Kushner, stopped in Brussels on Thursday to go over the plan with Ukraine and the Europeans. Even more notable was that the administration’s plan includes a major role for NATO in providing security. While these developments are positive, there is no indication that the underlying dynamics of the negotiations have changed. On this latest White House approach, the Kremlin has shown the same unwillingness to negotiate seriously. This time it was Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, who delivered the message: Moscow believes that a new security system requires the former Warsaw Pact and Baltic states to withdraw from NATO. That is hardly a proposal that would serve US interests or provide stability in Europe. None of this points to real progress in Abu Dhabi. As long as the White House is satisfied with small gestures rather than actual concessions, Putin will not reverse course. The war will not end. It might even get worse, as Putin’s hand would only be strengthened if the United States continued to reduce its pressure on the aggressor. Perhaps the only outcome of the talks, then, will be to agree to another round.