Abu Dhabi Round 2, held in February 2026, achieved progress on ceasefire monitoring mechanics — the procedural framework for how a truce would be observed and verified1. It deadlocked on the question that has defeated every negotiation since the war's first year: who controls Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson.
Three sticking points remain. Russia demands formal cession of the four oblasts — territory it partially occupies but does not fully control. Ukraine refuses any cession. On security guarantees, Zelenskyy stated the US guarantee text is "essentially ready," but the guarantor structure — who commits, to what, and with what enforcement — is unresolved2. On monitoring, negotiators reached near-consensus on mechanics but cannot agree on who deploys the monitors, a question that encodes deeper disagreements about whose authority any future peacekeeping presence would represent.
The pattern extends across four years. Istanbul's March 2022 communiqué — proposing Ukrainian neutrality for security guarantees from permanent Security Council members — collapsed after the Bucha killings and both sides' belief they could gain more by fighting. Jeddah in August 2023 drew dozens of states but excluded Russia. Bürgenstock in June 2024 produced a communiqué Moscow dismissed. Abu Dhabi benefits from direct bilateral engagement and Gulf-state mediation, but confronts the same structural impasse: neither side's minimum territorial position is compatible with the other's.
Samuel Charap of the RAND Corporation has argued that ceasefire mechanics can be designed independently of final territorial status, allowing a freeze at current lines without formal cession. That approach would require both belligerents to accept an indefinite pause at present positions — a concession neither has signalled willingness to make. Bloomberg reported on 28 February that Russia is now weighing a full suspension of talks unless Ukraine pre-commits to ceding all four oblasts3, which would render the monitoring progress moot before it can be tested.
