Ukraine's top negotiator says trilateral talks 'productive'

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at least 55,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed on the battlefield since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

"In ‌Ukraine, ⁠officially the number of soldiers killed on the battlefield — either professionals ‍or those conscripted — is 55,000," said ​Zelenskyy, ​in a pre-recorded interview with ‌France 2 TV.

Zelenskyy's comments were translated into French and he said that there was also a "large number of people" considered missing.

Last week, the Washington-based think tank, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said Ukrainian forces likely suffered between 500,000 and 600,000 casualties, including killed, wounded, and missing, and between 100,000 and 140,000 fatalities.

The CSIS gathered its data from information from military personnel, intelligence agencies and various governments.

It also said the total number of Russian soldiers who have been killed, injured or gone missing had reached over 1.2 million since the start of the invasion.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that talks needed to yield real peace and not provide Russia with a chance to continue the war.

"It must be felt now, people ‍in Ukraine must feel ​that ​the situation is genuinely moving toward peace and the end of the war, not toward Russia using everything to ‍its advantage and continuing attacks," Zelenskyy said in ​his nightly video address.

Zelenskyy's comments come after the first day of three-way talks wrapped up in Abu Dhabi.

He also said Ukraine was expecting ‌a new exchange of prisoners that would take place soon.

Ukraine's top negotiator Rustem Umerov has given positive signals from the first day of trilateral talks involving his country, Russia and the United States in Abu Dhabi.

"The work was substantive and productive, focusing ‍on concrete steps and ​practical solutions," Umerov said ⁠on ​the Telegram messaging app.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that a breakthrough may not come for a while but the Trump administration has made great progress on negotiations over the past year.

"That’s the good news," Rubio told reporters Wednesday. "The bad news is that the items that remain are the most difficult ones. And meanwhile the war continues."

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow wasn’t planning to comment on their results just yet.

He said “the doors for a peaceful settlement are open” but that Moscow will proceed with its military campaign until Kyiv meets its demands.

Talks are set to continue on Thursday, according to several media outlets citing Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council.

The European Council said there had been agreement on the terms for a new loan package for Kyiv to the tune of €90 billion ($106.3 billion).

The funds would support Ukraine's military and economic needs for 2026-2027 the council said in a statement.

"The new financing will help ensure the country’s fierce resilience in the face of Russian aggression," said Cypriot Finance Minister Makis Keravnos, whose country chaired the negotiations.

Under the scheme, Ukraine will be able to spend €60 billion on weapons to help it continue fighting off Russia's ongoing invasion.

The Commission said that the loan would be financed through EU borrowing on the capital markets and would become repayable once Russia paid war reparations to Ukraine.

The chairman of the Munich Security Conference, Wolfgang Ischinger, has told the German dpa news agency that the Russian government has shown no interest in participating in the conference later this month. 

"There has been no contract whatsoever from the Russian embassy, which regularly submitted requests for invitations before 2022," Ischinger told dpa. "This shows me that there is zero interest in constructive talks. 

Ischinger, a former German ambassador to the US long associated with the event, said he expected Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to attend the major security forum in the Bavarian capital, as he did in 2025 and 2024. 

The event, which began during the Cold War, had a traditional focus on inviting participants from all quarters, including the former Soviet Union, arguing that peace was made by talking to adversaries more than to friends. 

This principle has been put to the test already this year, as invitations are again issued to the populist right-wing Alternative for Germany political party. This follows a contentious period where the group was not invited, which drew criticism from US Vice President JD Vance last year.

The event also withdrew invitations to Iranian officials last month, in the aftermath of the public protests and their violent suppression. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was a regular guest almost every year between 2004 and 2020. 

Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine was launched shortly after the event in Munich that year. And in 2024, Russia announced the death of opposition leader Alexei Navalny on the morning that the conference opened. Navalny's widow still addressed the forum as scheduled. 

Ukraine's governor of the contested Donetsk region, Vadym Filashkin, has reported seven deaths and 15 people wounded in Russian strikes on the Ukrainian city of Druzhkivka early on Wednesday. 

"Let me remind you that this morning the Russians shelled the market in Druzhkivka directly with cluster munitions," Filashkin wrote in a post on Telegram. 

He said that those killed were between the ages of 43 and 81, and the wounded between 50 and 72, with the wounded all receiving the necessary medical care. 

Filashkin, who was in the city himself, urged the remaining residents to move to safer areas. It is estimated that around 19,000 of the city's prewar population of around 54,000 remain in Druzhkivka, which is roughly 15 kilometers from the front lines. 

Ukraine still controls roughly 20% of the Donetsk region, one of the eastern inudstrial regions that Russia unilaterally recognizes as independent breakaway states. 

A Russian court has sentenced a comedian to almost six years in jail and a fine for a joke he made about a legless war veteran that triggered outrage among nationalists and military bloggers. 

A Reuters reporter in the court said that the accused, Artemy Ostanin, was sentenced to 5 years and 9 months in prison, and a fine of 300,000 roubles (roughly $3,900 or €3,300). 

Ostanin is the latest in a series of people in Russia facing harsh penalties for perceived insult or denigration of the Russian military amid its invasion of Ukraine. 

In court, the comedian had apologized to anyone whose feelings he might have hurt, but denied wrongdoing and said the joke he had made about an invalid veteran had made no direct reference to the conflict in Ukraine. 

Ostanin was also convicted for offending religious sensibilities with an off-color joke he had made about Jesus that had upset some Orthodox nationalists. 

He and the defense argued that his arrest and pretrial detention should suffice as punishment. 

He was originally detained last March, when trying to leave Russia via Belarus. His lawyer alleged that he was severely beaten by police and sustained a spinal injury.

The capital Kyiv and much of Ukraine is forecast to experience modest relief in the coming days after a weekend of bitter cold. 

That said, highs in Kyiv on Wednesday were still a frosty -7 Celsius (19.4 Fahrenheit), with only very gradual improvements to these figures forecast through Sunday. 

This follows a period of more than 72 hours over the weekend in Kyiv where high temperatures never exceeded -10 Celsius, and lows regularly dipped toward -20, negative numbers even on the Fahrenheit scale.

Other parts of the country, notably the northern border city of Kharkiv, continued to face colder weather and forecast lows approaching -20 on Wednesday. 

By the start of next week, temperatures in Kyiv and much of the country are forecast to dip once more.

A supposed partial Russian amnesty, first touted by US President Donald Trump, in which Russia was supposed to scale back or stop attacks on the capital Kyiv and possibly more territory, depending on whose account one listened to, proved a short-lived disappointment. Nevertheless Trump yesterday asserted that Vladimir Putin "kept his word." 

Russia routinely targets Ukraine's energy and electricity infrastructure, particularly in winter, a tactic it has employed throughout all four winters of its invasion to date. 

The Kremlin said on Wednesday that working level talks between Russia and France were taking place, but that there was nothing to announce regarding a possible conversation between President Vladimir Putin and President Emmanuel Macron. 

This follows Macron saying on Tuesday that he was looking at resuming contact with Putin on Russia's invasion of Ukraine, even though he saw little readiness on Moscow's part to negotiate a ceasefire. He also said the talks were confined to a technical level for now. 

Macron said any talks would take place amid "transparence and concertation" with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy. 

"It is important that Europeans restore, in effect, their proper channels of discussion," Macron said, albeit warning that the continued "intolerable" Russian attacks on Ukraine did not demonstrate "a real desire to negotate for peace." 

In the early months of the war in 2022, Macron was among the last major western European leaders to break contact with Putin. The French president came under considerable fire from his allies for trying to maintain occasional calls trying to convince the Russian leader to change course. In the meantime, Donald Trump has adopted a rather different approach from the White House to that of his predecessor Joe Biden and several western European countries including Germany have reestablished some form of contact.

Both Russian and Ukrainian negotiators have begun talks in Abu Dhabi, representatives have confirmed. 

"Another round of negotiations has begun in Abu Dhabi. The negotiation process ⁠started in a trilateral format — Ukraine,
the United States, and Russia," Rustem Umerov,  Ukraine's top negotiator, wrote on Telegram.

At the same time, Moscow acknowledged that it has continued strikes in Ukraine despite the summit. 

"Until the Kyiv regime makes the appropriate decisions, the special military operation continues," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters.

A Russian drone strike has killed two people in Ukraine's eastern Dnipropetrovsk region, local officials said.

"A 68-year-old woman and a 38-year-old man were killed" in the attack on the Synelnykivsky district, regional administration head Mykola Lukashuk said on Telegram.

Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi for a second round of talks on a possible end to the war.

Ukraine's delegation is expected to be led by National Security and Defence Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, whom colleagues describe as a skilled negotiator capable of diplomatic "wonders."

Russia's team will again be headed by Igor Kostyukov, the director of the GRU military intelligence service and a career naval officer who is sanctioned in the West over his role in the invasion.

At the previous round of talks in Abu Dhabi last month, the US delegation was led by President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff. The first trilateral meeting took place in mid-January, while a follow-up session scheduled for last Sunday was postponed.

The Kremlin said there would be no changes to the Russian delegation, which includes Kostyukov and other senior officers, and that the talks are set to run until Thursday.

Ahead of the meeting, Russian forces struck Ukraine's energy infrastructure across several regions, Ukrainian authorities said, cutting electricity and heating to millions during bitter winter temperatures and disrupting repair work.

Thanks for joining as as we look at the latest on Russia's war in Ukraine.

Negotiators from Ukraine, Russia, and the United States are due to meet in Abu Dhabi as Russia ramps up drone and missile attacks on Ukraine's energy grid.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said the strikes show Moscow is "betting on war," while talks remain stuck over territory in eastern Ukraine, particularly the Donbas.

Stick with us for the latest updates on Ukraine.