Representatives from Ukraine, Russia and the United States began their meeting in the United Arab Emirates' capital, Abu Dhabi, late Friday afternoon.
About five hours later, Zelenskyy announced that the delegates had taken a break and would resume talks on Saturday.
- They talked about parameters for ending the war. Our negotiators should have received at least some answers from Russia. The main thing is that Russia is ready to end the war, which Russia itself started, he said in his daily address to the nation.
He said that during the talks he was and would be receiving constant updates on what was being said and that it was too early to draw conclusions from the discussions.
We'll see how the talks go tomorrow (Saturday) and what the outcome will be.
It is crucial that it is not only Ukraine that drives the desire to end the war, to achieve total security, but that a similar desire somehow takes hold in Russia.
However, ahead of the meeting, Russia stuck 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 Donbass. They must be withdrawn from there," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday morning, according to AFP.
