US to meet Russians in Abu Dhabi as Moscow and Kyiv trade fire

A US official was due to meet a Russian delegation in Abu Dhabi as President Donald Trump cited progress on his peace proposal and Moscow and Ukraine traded airstrikes overnight.

US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll travelled to the capital of the United Arab Emirates for the meeting with Russian counterparts, according to people familiar with the matter who asked not to be identified, discussing sensitive information.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had nothing to say on reports of the meeting, according to the Interfax news service.

The talks are set to happen after Trump suggested in a social media post that “big progress” was being made on a deal for Ukraine. His comment implied that Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Ukrainian officials who met Sunday in Geneva made advances in defusing the vehement opposition from Kyiv and its European allies to a 28-point peace proposal the White House team floated last week.

Washington is more relaxed about Trump’s Nov. 27 deadline to secure Ukraine’s backing for his proposal after some progress was made in Geneva, but the US still wants to reach a deal sooner rather than later, the people familiar with the Abu Dhabi meeting said. CBS News was first to report the Abu Dhabi talks.

Moscow and Kyiv exchanged fire overnight with heavy air raids on Kyiv and assaults on southern Russian areas.

Ukraine’s air defences worked to shield the capital from combined missile and drone attacks, and loud explosions were heard, with authorities instructing residents to stay in shelters. At least six people were killed, the city’s military administration said on Telegram.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a residential apartment building had been severely damaged in the attacks, and some power and water supply cuts were being imposed in city districts as emergency workers responded, according to a statement on Telegram.

The Odesa region in Ukraine’s south also came under attack overnight, the country’s Emergencies Ministry said. Six people were injured there, and energy and port infrastructure were damaged, it said, without providing additional details on what was hit.

Separately, Romania scrambled fighter jets on Tuesday morning to monitor what it said were two intrusions into its airspace by drones in the east and southeast near the border with Ukraine, according to a statement on the Defence Ministry’s website.

Meanwhile, the Krasnodar region on Russia’s Black Sea coast suffered suspected drone attacks overnight, injuring six people and damaging at least 20 residential buildings across five municipalities, Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said. The key port of Novorossiysk was among the hardest hit, he said.

In the neighbouring Rostov region, three people were killed and several others injured, Governor Yuri Slusar said on Telegram. An air attack on Taganrog damaged several residential buildings, two industrial enterprises and a kindergarten, Mayor Svetlana Kambulova said.

In the days since White House Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart Kirill Dmitriev hammered out the plan, Ukrainian and European officials hurried to draft a counteroffer that would provide far less favourable terms to Russia. The result is a winnowed-down, 19-point plan, according to people familiar with the matter.

Russian officials have called the revised plan a non-starter.

Before the bombardment, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy used his regular evening address to the nation to say that progress had been made in negotiations over peace proposals, which Kyiv is conducting with its US and European partners.

“Now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable,” Zelenskiy said. “Many right elements have been taken into account in this framework.” However, much remains to be done, Zelenskiy said, adding that the process should be conducted “with dignity.”

Following the overnight strikes, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called for continued pressure on Russia as well as unity among transatlantic allies to end the war. The attack was a “terrorist response to the United States’ and President Trump’s peace proposals,” he said on the X platform.

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