Russia has named the full senior team it will send to next week's trilateral peace talks with the United States and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Interfax news agency on Saturday — a delegation that pairs its chief negotiator with its military intelligence chief and, for the first time in this format, its top arms-control diplomat, Reuters reported.

Source: Reuters via DevDiscourse

Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky will again head the Russian delegation as chief negotiator. Alongside him will be Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin, Igor Kostyukov, the chief of Russia's military intelligence agency, and Yuri Zhigarlovsky, a senior General Staff officer, Peskov said, alongside other military and diplomatic officials.

Source: Interfax via AzerNews

Who is who in Moscow's team

Ryabkov, who joins this delegation for the first time, oversees Russia's relations with North and South America and is responsible for arms control, non-proliferation and issues related to Iran's nuclear programme — a brief that reaches well beyond the battlefield in Ukraine. Zhigarlovsky is a deputy chief of the Main Operational Directorate of the General Staff, the body responsible for military planning and operations. Kostyukov, the military intelligence chief, and Galuzin have both joined past negotiating missions, Reuters said.

Source: Reuters via DevDiscourse

All members of the delegation met President Vladimir Putin on Friday at a meeting of Russia's Security Council that was partly devoted to the upcoming talks. In the televised opening minutes, Putin thanked the United Arab Emirates for hosting the negotiations and said he wanted to discuss preparations with the Russian team; most of the meeting then took place behind closed doors.

What is on the table

The talks, scheduled for Tuesday and Wednesday, are expected to address ending the war, postwar security arrangements and de-escalation, US envoy Steve Witkoff said earlier. They will be the first US-mediated talks between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators since February, before the United States and Israel launched their war against Iran, and US negotiators have been seeking a breakthrough before winter sets in, Reuters reported. Ukraine has not yet published the composition of its own delegation.

The diplomatic push is unfolding under fire: Russian forces launched a ballistic missile attack on Kyiv early on Saturday, days before the talks, after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned in his nightly address that Ukrainian intelligence showed Russia preparing new strikes on energy targets, bridges and other infrastructure.