Putin Envoy Dmitriev Back In Miami For Talks, Which Seem To Be Going Nowhere
President Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev has arrived in Miami this weekend where he held another round of talks with an American delegation. The discussions started early Saturday morning, after Dmitriev confirmed his arrival, writing on social media simply, "Back in Miami".
The talks follow a round of meetings held on January 23-24 in Abu Dhabi involving the United States, Ukraine, and Russia. Media reports said those discussions produced "progress" on military-related issues, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky describing them as constructive. But were they really?
Apart from such expressions of limited optimism, there's been no serious advancement of peace in any tangible or measurable way, and on issues which matter as 'red lines' to either side.
For example, territorial concessions are still a sticking point for Moscow, but Ukraine and its Western backers have not budged their position on this.
Axios has meanwhile reported that the trilateral talks in the United Arab Emirates are expected to continue on Sunday, adding that meetings in Abu Dhabi also included a bilateral Ukraine-Russia format conducted without US participation.
The fact that the warring sides actually have representatives sitting across the table from one another can itself be seen as progress in some sense.
Meanwhile, according to some recent analysis in The Washington Post which furthers the theme that Trump has actually seeking to wash his hands of the Ukraine conflict and its mediation:
President Donald Trump “sometimes talks as if he agrees with Vladimir Putin that Russian victory in this bloodbath [in Ukraine] is inevitable,” according to David Ignatius’s column in The Washington Post. However, Ignatius’ conversations in Kyiv with Ukraine’s senior officials convinced him that “this bleak picture is misleading.”
“Ukraine will soon deploy a new generation of domestically produced air-defense interceptors, powered by artificial intelligence, that could allow the country to fight on indefinitely,” Ignatius writes. “Putin doesn’t want to make concessions because he still thinks he can win. But Ukraine’s new network of AI-driven air defenses will make that less likely. If Ukraine can protect the civilians on Kyiv’s frozen streets—and reassure them that they won’t face another winter in the deep freeze, even if the war continues—perhaps Putin will reconsider his bet,” according to Ignatius.
And so the grinding war of attrition looks to endure for the time being, and by close of 2026 we could still be seeing the exact same headlines, and empty statements of 'progress' at the negotiating table.
One question which remains is whether Zelensky will still be in power by next year. Trump has put pressure for Kiev to hold elections, but in the last couple weeks seems to have backed off keeping up the public pressure.