Russia has used the first direct talks with Ukraine and the United States in nine months to press demands that go far beyond the battlefield, including a call for Finland to reverse its accession to NATO. The proposals, circulated at the negotiations held during the tripartite talks in Abu Dhabi, would also bar alliance bases from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, strip Ukraine of Western weapons and a naval role at its ports, and pull NATO back to its 1997 borders. The only concrete result of the talks was an agreement in principle on the largest prisoner exchange of the war, potentially involving 1,000 to 1,500 personnel from each side.
Interestingly, a "non-paper" circulated in Abu Dhabi, whose authenticity has not been confirmed, states that Russia would keep all the Ukrainian land it now occupies and annex the whole of Donbas. Kyiv would surrender its remaining parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, accept permanent non-alignment, and give up any bid for NATO membership. EU accession would be allowed only outside the bloc's common defence policy. The ports of Odesa and Mykolaiv would be demilitarised and closed to naval use, and Western weapons supplies would stop.
Finland, which joined NATO in 2023, would restore its non-aligned status. The alliance would end nuclear sharing, and British and French nuclear guarantees to other European states would be withdrawn. Moldova would be federalised, with independence referendums for Transnistria and Gagauzia if Chișinău pursues EU membership. In return, Russia offered to withdraw nuclear weapons and intermediate-range missiles from Belarus. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov later denied that Moscow had demanded Finland's exit from NATO.
Russian negotiators have tied the package to what they call the "root causes" of the war, which they define as the architecture of European security. They have revived the draft treaties Moscow tabled in December 2021, which the West rejected two months before the full-scale invasion. The Kremlin argues that "indivisible security" requires NATO to withdraw its forces and infrastructure to their 1997 positions. In bilateral exchanges, Russian delegates cited the Warsaw Pact era as a model of stability, with recognised spheres of influence limiting direct conflict. US envoys urged them to look ahead, to which the Russians replied that European stability depends on NATO's withdrawal.
American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner mediated, joined by General Alexus Grynkewich, the senior NATO and US military commander. Participants and observers cautioned that the prisoner exchange is no breakthrough; it follows an established pattern of tactical confidence-building measures, while territory and post-war security guarantees remain untouched.
European leaders, largely excluded from the trilateral format, reacted sharply. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas called the security demands a trap meant to divert attention from an immediate ceasefire. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk rejected them as unacceptable and a direct threat to Poland. Finland's Defence Minister Antti Häkkänen and Foreign Minister Elina Valtonen said Finland's NATO status is not open to outside negotiation. Treaty law supports them. Under the principle of pacta tertiis nec nocent nec prosunt and Article 34 of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, an agreement among Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv cannot bind a third state without its consent. Finland and the Baltic states would have to agree for themselves.
The diplomatic calendar is filling up. After US envoy visits to Moscow and debriefs with President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin, Vladimir Putin is due to meet Donald Trump and Xi Jinping in Shenzhen next week—a gathering Russian state media already compare to the Yalta Conference of 1945.
Putin arrives from a position less secure than his tone suggests. Nearly five years of war have brought heavy Russian casualties and growing economic strain. Ukrainian drones keep striking Russian energy infrastructure, raising the risk of fuel shortages, and have hit naval assets as far away as the Baltic Sea. Moscow insists that military pressure will extract Western concessions before winter ends.
