Putin, Zelensky may meet shortly

KYIV, Jan 25 (Reuters/TASS): Ukraine and Russia ended a second day of US-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Saturday without a deal but with more talks expected next weekend, even as overnight Russian airstrikes knocked out power for over a million Ukrainians amid subzero winter cold.

Statements after the conclusion of the talks did not indicate that any agreements had been reached, but Moscow and Kyiv both said they were open to further dialogue.

"The central focus of the discussions was the possible parameters for ending the war," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy wrote on X after the meeting.

Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon meet Vladimir Zelensky, Axios web portal said, citing a source in the US administration.

"We are very close to a meeting between Putin and Zelensky," a US official said, cited by the news portal. Additional trilateral negotiations should be organized before that, the source noted.

"We think those meetings need to happen before a meeting between the leaders. We don't think we are far away from that. If we continue down the current path we will get to that place," he stressed.

Washington believes that trilateral talks of representatives of Russia, the United States and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi "went as well as we could have expected."

"We feel good where we are now," another US official told Axios. Trilateral consultations were held in Abu Dhabi on January 23 and 24.

More discussions were expected next Sunday in Abu Dhabi, said a US official who spoke to reporters immediately after the talks.

"We saw a lot of respect in the room between the parties because they were really looking to find solutions," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We got to real granular detail and (we feel) that next Sunday will be, God willing, another meeting where we push this deal towards its final culmination."

A UAE government spokesperson said there was face-to-face engagement between Ukraine and Russia - rare in the almost four-year-old war triggered by a full-scale Russian invasion - and negotiators tackled "outstanding elements" of Washington's peace framework.

Looking beyond next week's negotiations in Abu Dhabi, the US official voiced hopes for further talks, possibly in Moscow or Kyiv.

"Those sorts of meetings have to happen, in our view, before we get a bilateral between (Russian President Vladimir) Putin and Zelenskiy, or a trilateral with Putin, Zelenskiy and President Trump. But I don't think we're so far away from that," the official said.

The bombardment of Ukraine's capital Kyiv and its second-largest city Kharkiv by hundreds of Russian drones and missiles prompted Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha - who was not at the talks - to accuse Putin of acting "cynically".

"This barbaric attack once again proves that Putin's place is not at (US President Donald Trump's) Board of Peace, but in the dock of the special tribunal," Sybiha wrote on X.

"His missiles hit not only our people, but also the negotiation table."

Saturday was scheduled to be the final day of the talks, billed by Zelenskiy as the first trilateral meeting under the US-mediated peace process.

The UAE statement said the talks were conducted in a "constructive and positive atmosphere" and included discussions about confidence-building measures.