Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky held a detailed hour-and-a-half phone call on Wednesday, November 4, with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to prepare for next week's trilateral peace talks with Russia in Abu Dhabi, saying Ukraine's proposals are already with Washington and that post-war security guarantees "must be truly ironclad", the Kyiv Independent reported.

Source: Kyiv Independent via Both News

The call is the latest step since Witkoff announced on November 3 that the United States would bring Ukrainian and Russian delegations together in Abu Dhabi on November 10-11 — a round the Kremlin confirmed the same day, naming Vladimir Medinsky as Moscow's chief negotiator. Zelensky's account moves the story from the announcement to what each side now says the talks must produce.

Source: Reuters via TBS News

The Abu Dhabi round was announced earlier this week and confirmed by the Kremlin. Read the earlier story: Abu Dhabi talks announced

"We just had a very detailed, hour-and-a-half-long conversation with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. We are preparing for a trilateral format at the team level between Ukraine, the United States, and Russia — to take place in less than a week," Zelensky wrote on X, in a post reported by ANI. "Ukraine is grateful to the United States for its support of Ukraine's independence, our people, and our diplomatic efforts. There is no alternative to peace, and post-war security guarantees must be truly ironclad. We are working towards this!"

Source: ANI via EuropeSays

Patriots and drones alongside the peace track

Air defence was a primary topic of the call: Zelensky said Ukraine needs interceptor missiles for its Patriot systems to protect lives from Russian attacks, and the Kyiv Independent noted the request comes as Kyiv suffers under renewed Russian strikes. The two sides also discussed the US-Ukraine "Drone Deals" cooperation, and Zelensky said work must continue on each bilateral track with the United States.

Zelensky also reported a substantive meeting in Brussels involving representatives of Ukraine, the United States, the European Union, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, NATO, the World Bank and the global business community on post-war reconstruction, with a further Brussels meeting on security guarantees also scheduled, ANI reported. Pollar's account of Kyiv's stated priorities for the talks listed a ceasefire covering energy and critical infrastructure, unblocking Black Sea exports, prisoner exchanges and security guarantees.

Three capitals, three descriptions of the same talks

In the early hours of Thursday, Kushner wrote on X that Washington's focus goes beyond ending the fighting to a broader security architecture meant to stop the war from restarting, according to a summary of the exchanges by Silent Dossier. Russia's investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev answered on the same platform, calling the two Americans "peacemakers", while Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Abu Dhabi agenda is "security guarantees of the parties", with details to stay behind closed doors.

What happens next: the Brussels security-guarantees meeting and the Abu Dhabi team-level round on November 10-11 will show whether the three descriptions can be turned into one text. The talks would be the first trilateral round since February, and Kyiv says technical negotiations could lead to a leader-level summit involving Zelensky, Russian President Vladimir Putin and US President Donald Trump.