Ukraine, Russia, and the United States will begin a second day of talks in Abu Dhabi on Thursday, aimed at ending Moscow’s nearly four-year invasion of Ukraine.

The US-mediated negotiations are the latest chapter in a diplomatic effort to halt the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale offensive in February 2022, which has so far failed to produce a breakthrough.

The first day of trilateral talks in the Emirati capital on Wednesday concluded with Kyiv describing the discussions as “substantive and productive”, though no concrete agreement was announced.

The conflict is Europe’s deadliest since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed, millions forced to flee their homes and large swathes of eastern and southern Ukraine left devastated.

Highlighting the human toll, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that 55,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed — a rare public assessment of battlefield losses by either side.

Russia has also stepped up strikes on Ukraine’s power infrastructure, leaving many people, including residents of the capital Kyiv, without electricity and enduring temperatures as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius in recent days.

Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said “concrete steps and practical solutions” were discussed during the first day of talks.

However, the Kremlin reiterated its hardline position, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters that the fighting would continue “until the Kyiv regime makes the appropriate decisions”.

The main sticking point in the negotiations remains the long-term fate of territory in eastern Ukraine.

Moscow is demanding that Kyiv withdraw its forces from large parts of the Donbas region, including heavily fortified cities rich in natural resources, as a precondition for any deal.

It is also seeking international recognition of territories seized during the invasion as Russian territory.

Kyiv has proposed freezing the conflict along the current front line and has rejected any pullback of its troops.

The trilateral negotiations, first held on January 23 and 24 in Abu Dhabi, are the most visible sign so far of progress in US President Donald Trump’s efforts to negotiate an end to the war.

Trump has dispatched his envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner to try to bring the sides toward an agreement.

Speaking ahead of the second round of talks, Ukrainian foreign ministry spokesman Georgiy Tykhy said Kyiv was “interested in finding out what the Russians and Americans really want”.

Putin ‘only scared of Trump’

Zelensky said the US president’s role would be crucial, telling French television in an interview broadcast on Wednesday that “Putin is only scared of Trump”.

Trump could apply economic sanctions against Russia or increase weapons transfers to Ukraine to “maintain pressure on Putin”, Zelensky said, while stressing that Kyiv would not compromise on its sovereignty.

Russia currently occupies around 20 percent of Ukrainian territory. It claims the Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia regions as its own and controls pockets of land in at least three other eastern Ukrainian regions.

Kyiv still holds about one-fifth of the Donetsk region and has warned that ceding territory would embolden Moscow. Ukrainian officials have said they will not sign any agreement that fails to deter Russia from launching another invasion.