Who Is in the Room in Abu Dhabi: Moscow Sends Its Generals and Its Iran Hand to Trump's Ukraine Table
The Kremlin on Saturday named its team for Tuesday's U.S.-mediated talks — a military intelligence chief, a General Staff operations officer and, for the first time, the deputy foreign minister who handles Iran's nuclear file. Europe is not at the table. Here is what the lineups say.
By Clara Hughes
The first three-way Russia-Ukraine-U.S. talks since February are set to open Tuesday in Abu Dhabi, with a second day planned Wednesday, Russian state media and Reuters reported. The American side is led by special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a senior U.S. official told Reuters. On Saturday the Kremlin finally put names to its side of the table — and the names are worth reading closely. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax that the Russian delegation will again be headed by presidential aide Vladimir Medinsky, and will include deputy foreign ministers Sergei Ryabkov and Mikhail Galuzin, military intelligence (GRU) chief Igor Kostyukov, and Yury Zhigarlovsky, deputy head of the General Staff's Main Operational Directorate, according to Anadolu and Reuters reporting carried by The Jerusalem Post. Peskov said foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov will oversee the negotiations. All of them sat with President Vladimir Putin at a Security Council meeting Friday, where he thanked the