The meeting has begun, reports a Sky News correspondent at 11 a.m. local time in Sweden.
It is still unclear whether Ukrainian and Russian representatives will meet face to face, but if so, it will be the first trilateral talks since the outbreak of war in 2022.
However, Russia is sticking to its maximalist demands that Ukraine give up the 25 percent of the Donetsk region that Kyiv still controls.
"Russia's position is well known that Ukraine and the Ukrainian armed forces must leave Donbas. They must be withdrawn from there," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said shortly before the start of the meeting, according to AFP.
Territories: hot-button issue
President Vladimir Putin's adviser Yuri Ushakov confirmed Russia's participation in Abu Dhabi on Friday night, following talks between Putin and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow. He called Thursday's meeting in the Russian capital, which reportedly continued well into the early hours, "useful in all respects."
"I would describe it as extremely sincere and based on trust," Ushakov said, according to Russian state-run Tass.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Thursday, after meeting with US President Donald Trump in Davos, that representatives of the three countries will hold trilateral talks on Friday and Saturday. He confirmed that the key issue is territories.
"It's just about the land. That's the issue that hasn't been resolved yet," Zelenskyy told reporters, noting that "the Russians must be ready for compromises, not just Ukraine."
Russia sends spy chief
The Ukrainian president stated that a draft peace agreement was "almost, almost" ready and that he and Trump had agreed on security guarantees after the war.
In Abu Dhabi, the Ukrainian side is represented by chief negotiator Rustem Umerov, Zelenskyy's chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, MP Davyd Arachamia and Andriy Hnatov, Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Witkoff and Kushner, among others, are participating for the United States. The Russian team is led by Igor Kostyukov, head of Russia's military intelligence service GRU. Kostyukov is subject to sanctions by the EU and is suspected, among other things, of involvement in the Novichok poisoning in Salisbury, UK, in 2018.
