As anticipated, the second day of talks at Abu Dhabi among Russian, Ukrainian and American delegations ended — after less than two hours — without any apparent progress toward a settlement or ceasefire agreement.

Following the trilateral meeting, representatives from Germany, France, Britain, Italy, NATO, and the EU met with Ukrainian and U.S. participants, though they had not been included in the talks with the Russian delegation.

And it was revealed that U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are scheduled to meet with Vladimir Putin in Moscow tomorrow, November 12th, to be followed by a meeting in Dublin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

But one hopeful bit of information was presented by the head of the Russian delegation, Vladimir Medinsky, at the close of today’s session:

“We have reached an agreement in principle on a new large-scale prisoner exchange. The specific details will be announced in the near future.” [RFE/RL, November 11, 2026.]

And Jared Kushner confirmed:

“One of the positives is we agreed that we’re going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we’re going to finalize the numbers tomorrow.” [Associated Press, November 11, 2026.]

So we might still have some news to look forward to.

The war, however, continues to drag on, with overnight attacks by Russia on civilian infrastructure, apartments and schools in the Kryviy Rih, Dnipropetrovsk and Zhytomyr regions.

Ukraine retaliated with a barrage of some 150 drones over Russia’s Leningrad region, striking the Ust-Luga port area, home to Russia’s largest energy oil and export hub on the Baltic Sea. [RFE/RL, op.cit.]

Let’s hope for better news on the negotiations tomorrow, and further details on the prisoner exchange. With any luck, it will include, along with prisoners of war, the release of American and other political prisoners being held hostage by Putin.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
11/11/26