The planned resumption of trilateral negotiations between Ukraine, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi in early November is already being presented in several Western capitals as evidence that diplomacy has regained its momentum, but a return to the negotiating table should not be confused with genuine progress toward
The Trump administration is assessing an application from the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF) to be removed from the US sanctions list, a US official told The New York Times (NYT). A day later, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the two sides were in talks over it.
Washington has been easing pressure on Moscow piece by piece. On 9 October, the Treasury issued a general license allowing sales of Russian diesel, including into the US. A week later, President Trump waived new sanctions under the Graham Act, a Russia sanctions law he had signed on 18 September. Meanwhile, Kyiv is still waiting for the next round of three-way peace talks. Freeing a Kremlin fund now would lift another cost from Moscow before any settlement on Ukraine.
The fund is run by Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s envoy in talks with Washington. The official said the administration was weighing the application through established procedures, as part of an effort to “improve US-Russia relations and help end the war.”
The official also praised Dmitriev as “a helpful envoy.” Russian officials pushed for delisting during talks on the fund’s role in shipping Russian diesel to the US, people familiar with the negotiations told the NYT. The Treasury, however, held that its 9 October license already let the fund handle diesel transactions, the paper reported.
Ushakov described a two-way conversation rather than a review. He said on 28 October that it had been going on for some time and that he did not know the outcome. He pointed in particular to Dmitriev’s active contacts, saying that was why the issue had come up.
The Treasury fully blocked the fund and Dmitriev on 28 February 2022, four days after Russia launched its full-scale invasion. At the time, it said the fund was widely considered a slush fund for Putin. The Treasury is handling the new request under its normal process, and the fund will have to prove the grounds for its sanctions no longer apply, people familiar with the process told the NYT.
Eric Green oversaw Russia policy at the White House National Security Council under President Joe Biden. He told the paper that lifting the sanctions would send a strong message. In his view, Washington would be relaxing its position of not easing sanctions and other costs until a settlement in Ukraine.
This is not Dmitriev’s first push this year. On 7 February, Zelenskyy said Ukrainian intelligence had shown him a so-called “Dmitriev package” of US-Russia cooperation, worth about $12 trillion, that Dmitriev presented in the US. In April, he arrived in Washington as a US oil waiver for Russia neared expiry. US delisting would not touch UK and EU restrictions on the fund. But it would reopen American finance to a fund the Treasury said Putin’s inner circle relied on to raise money abroad.
The Kremlin is seeking to avoid a face-to-face meeting between President Volodymyr Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin by proposing they speak by phone instead, the Kyiv Independent has learned.
The apparent move comes as Kyiv insists the two leaders should meet in person to address the most pressing issues
President Nikos Christodoulides on Friday said that “progress is possible” on the Cyprus problem, as he evaluated the meeting he held with the United Nations’ Cyprus problem envoy Maria Angela Holguin earlier in the day.
“It was a very good meeting, during which the 19 points we submitted were discussed, along with other ideas on how to generate positive news, positive developments, which could lead to the resumption of talks from the point at which they were interrupted in the summer of 2017,” he said.
He added that he is “cautiously optimistic” about the next steps following his meeting with Holguin, before adding that it would be “really beneficial” if “more than one” meeting involving himself, Holguin, and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman could be scheduled during Holguin’s current visit to the island.
“We now await her meeting with the Turkish Cypriot leader on Monday to see how to proceed. I believe, and I reiterate, based on our discussion, that I am, quite justifiably, cautiously optimistic,” he said.
Asked about the matter of convergences reached in prior negotiation processes and the UN’s creation of a document recording them, he said that “I do not wish to disclose any substantive details”.
“We are at a critical juncture, involving critical processes. Let us take a note of the fact that, justifiably, based on what has been discussed, we are cautiously optimistic, and we are hoping that this optimism, this cautious optimism, will translate into concrete, positive results,” he said.
Holguin had previously said of the convergences document that “the United Nations has reviewed several documents that may prove useful when the parties decide to resume formal negotiations”.
Regarding their details, she stressed that “this compilation will be presented when negotiations begin” and will not be released beforehand.
This decision, she said, was made because the UN’s position is that “we will not introduce anything that could give rise to further debate and serve to trigger further setbacks”.
Of Friday’s meeting, she said that she remains optimistic over the prospect of an enlarged meeting on the Cyprus problem being held before the end of the year.
“Yes, I am optimistic … If there are some advances in the [confidence-building measures], in methodology, and in some substance, and if we can get this, we are going to have the 5+1,” she said, with the term “5+1” used to describe an enlarged meeting involving the island’s two sides, its three guarantor powers, Greece, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, and the UN.
Regarding Friday’s meeting and her planned meeting with Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman, she said that “we are pushing and continue pushing”, and that “this is what the secretary-general asked of me, is until the last minute of his mandate, he wants to see if we can move forward on the Cyprus issue”.
Incumbent UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres will leave office at the end of the year, with it still not yet clear who will replace him. It was Guterres who had first that enlarged meeting will only be achieved “after adequate progress” is achieved on confidence-building measures, the meeting’s methodology and the substance of the talks.
Sergei Lavrov’s arrival in the United States for the G20 foreign ministers’ meeting is unlikely to transform the prospects for peace in Ukraine. For Moscow, however, the visit offers opportunities extending well beyond the formal agenda.
Russia’s veteran foreign minister will participate in discussions alongside representatives of the world’s major economies, including governments that have imposed extensive sanctions on Moscow and others that have maintained profitable commercial relationships with it.
The meeting, chaired by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on 30–31 October, takes place as Washington pursues another diplomatic initiative concerning Ukraine.
Lavrov’s presence has attracted criticism from American lawmakers, including Republican Congressman Don Bacon, who has questioned why a senior representative of a government conducting military operations against Ukrainian cities should be welcomed in the United States.
Yet the more consequential issue is not whether Lavrov should attend. It is what Moscow hopes to achieve through renewed access to Western diplomatic forums, and what the United States expects to obtain in return.
The Kremlin has spent much of the war arguing that Western attempts to isolate Russia have failed.
There is some substance to that argument, although it requires qualification.
Russia has suffered extensive restrictions on access to Western finance, technology and markets. Its economic relationships with Europe have been severely reduced, and its dependence on alternative trading partners has increased.
Nevertheless, Moscow has preserved important commercial and diplomatic connections with China, India and other countries unwilling to participate fully in Western sanctions.
For these governments, relations with Russia are often determined by energy requirements, commercial opportunities and their own strategic calculations rather than European security priorities.
The G20 provides Moscow with an opportunity to exploit those differences.
Lavrov can challenge Western sanctions, defend Russia’s diplomatic positions and hold bilateral discussions without demonstrating any willingness to compromise over occupied Ukrainian territory.
That does not make the meeting a Russian victory. Attendance at a multilateral gathering is not equivalent to the removal of sanctions or recognition of territorial claims.
But it offers Moscow something useful: opportunities for engagement without the conditions that would normally accompany substantive negotiations.
The limitations of such diplomacy were illustrated recently when German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul met Lavrov in New York.
As EU Today examined in its analysis of that encounter, the meeting reopened a channel of communication but produced no visible movement in Russia’s position.
Germany restated its support for Ukraine. Moscow reiterated its established arguments.
The encounter demonstrated that diplomatic access and diplomatic progress are not necessarily the same thing.
The Trump administration approaches Russia from a different perspective.
Washington appears increasingly interested in identifying economic and political incentives that could make a negotiated settlement possible.
The calculation is understandable. Sanctions alone have not ended the war, and continued fighting imposes enormous costs on Ukraine while consuming Western military resources.
However, negotiations depend on more than establishing contact.
A settlement requires agreement over territory, security arrangements, enforcement mechanisms and the consequences of renewed hostilities.
Russia’s willingness to participate in discussions does not establish its willingness to accept terms compatible with Ukrainian sovereignty.
Nor does the prospect of economic cooperation necessarily create sufficient leverage to change Moscow’s calculations.
The administration must also consider how concessions offered to Russia would affect Ukraine’s ability to negotiate.
If Moscow expects economic benefits merely for remaining at the negotiating table, it has an incentive to prolong discussions while preserving its military position.
Conversely, a credible offer tied to verifiable Russian actions could provide a basis for substantive bargaining.
The difference lies in the conditions attached to any concessions and the mechanisms available to enforce them.
For European governments, the Atlanta meeting exposes a familiar weakness.
The EU is a major provider of financial assistance to Ukraine, maintains extensive sanctions against Russia and would face the consequences of any settlement that failed to establish lasting security arrangements.
Yet European influence over direct American-Russian negotiations remains limited.
EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas is attending the meeting and will conduct bilateral discussions, according to the European External Action Service’s official announcement.
Her participation gives Brussels an opportunity to communicate its position. It does not guarantee a role in determining the terms of any eventual agreement.
Ukraine itself is not participating in the gathering, although the G20 meeting is not formally a peace negotiation.
The danger for Europe is not simply exclusion from particular meetings. It is the possibility that decisions affecting European security will emerge from negotiations in which European governments possess limited influence over the agenda.
The EU retains important instruments of leverage, particularly sanctions, financial assistance and access to its markets.
But those instruments are less effective when member states disagree over their use or when Washington pursues a separate diplomatic strategy.
The meeting also takes place amid serious tensions over Iran, maritime security and international trade.
Washington wants greater cooperation over freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, Red Sea, Black Sea and South China Sea.
These priorities intersect with European interests, particularly energy security and the protection of commercial shipping.
Yet the participating governments approach these disputes from markedly different positions.
China has little interest in endorsing an American interpretation of maritime security that could constrain its own regional ambitions.
Russia is unlikely to support arrangements that weaken its position in the Black Sea.
Meanwhile, disagreements over American tariffs complicate Washington’s efforts to secure cooperation from traditional economic partners.
The G20 remains useful precisely because governments with conflicting interests can communicate through it.
But communication should not be mistaken for agreement.
For Moscow, Lavrov’s visit offers another opportunity to demonstrate that Russia remains engaged in international diplomacy despite its war against Ukraine.
For Washington, the challenge is to show that renewed engagement can produce something more substantial than another meeting.
Europe’s concern is more immediate: any settlement negotiated with Moscow will have to be sustainable on European territory, with European resources and against the possibility of renewed Russian aggression.
Diplomatic access may be relatively easy to restore. Establishing credible security arrangements will be considerably harder.
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