Russia and Ukraine hold a second day of US-brokered peace talks in Abu Dhabi

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Negotiators from Moscow and Kyiv on Thursday held a second day of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on ending their war amid an escalation in Russia’s winter attacks on Ukraine’s power grid and after a sharp rise last year in Ukrainian civilians killed in the fighting.

“We are working in the same formats as yesterday: trilateral consultations, group work, and further synchronization of positions,” said Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council chief, who was present at the meeting.

The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined in the capital of the United Arab Emirates by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to Umerov. They were also at last month's talks in the same place as the Trump administration tries to steer the two countries toward a settlement.

General Alexus Grynkewich, NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, was also present at the talks, according to a spokesman for the general who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged allied countries to press Moscow into ending its all-out invasion, which began almost four years ago on Feb. 24 2022, and said his country needs security guarantees to deter any postwar Russian attacks.

Ukrainians must feel that there is genuine progress toward peace and “not toward a scenario in which the Russians exploit everything to their advantage and continue their strikes,” Zelenskyy said on social media late Wednesday.

Fighting has continued in parallel with the talks. Russia has hammered Ukraine’s electricity network, aiming to deny civilians power and weaken their appetite for the fight, while a grinding war of attrition continues along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.

Last year saw a 31% increase in Ukrainian civilian casualties compared with 2024, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday.

Almost 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and just over 40,000 injured since the start of the war through last December, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.

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Emma Burrows in London contributed to this report.

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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine