The largest humanitarian prisoner exchange of the Ukraine war was agreed during talks in Abu Dhabi, US President’s envoy Jared Kushner said on Wednesday (November 11) and added that their delegation will meet President Vladimir Putin in Russia for talks tomorrow.

After Russian and Ukrainian officials held a second day of negotiations in the Emirati capital, Kushner said the final number of prisoners to be released was expected to be finalised on Thursday (November 12).

He added that he will travel to Moscow with US envoy Steve Witkoff on Thursday, then meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Dublin after their trip to Russia.

The talks come as US President Donald Trump's envoys launched a new push to end the war in Ukraine, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy calling the talks "constructive and quite substantive.”

The meeting followed US contacts with both sides in recent weeks that Kushner said had narrowed gaps between their positions.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

SHOWS: ABU DHABI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES (NOVEMBER 11, 2026) (AGENCY POOL - Access all)

1. HEAD OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT'S MAJORITY FACTION, DAVID ARAKHAMIA, US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, JARED KUSHNER, FIRST DEPUTY HEAD OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT OF UKRAINE, SERGIY KYSLYTSYA, AND OTHER OFFICIALS WALKING TOWARDS PODIUM

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, JARED KUSHNER, SAYING:

"One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalise the numbers tomorrow. Steve (Witkoff) and I are going to travel to Moscow tomorrow to meet with President Putin to go over what was discussed today and try to make more progress on some of the issues that we discussed because we see some openings and some opportunities there. After that, we're going to fly to Dublin and we're going to be with (Ukrainian) President (Volodymyr) Zelenskiy to debrief with him and further explore some of the ideas that we came up with here today."

3. WHITE FLASH

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, JARED KUSHNER, SAYING:

"We also discussed the hard issues. No issues weren't discussed that are open. The territorial issues, which will be the hardest. But we do believe that as we discuss these other issues, we'll find a pathway to settle them all at the same time. I think that having these discussions is very important, but the implementation of post-war security will not occur until there's an agreement on territory and on all other bilateral issues."

5. WHITE FLASH

6. (SOUNDBITE) (English) US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, JARED KUSHNER, SAYING:

"One of the goals of the meeting in Moscow, in addition to trying to finalise the humanitarian relief and the release of prisoners and other humanitarian issues that we're working on together, is going to be to try and see if we can get the Europeans added to the format, so that we can make this a multilateral format. At the beginning and the end of these sessions and constantly during, we had very good interactions and discussions with our European partners. We had here: the EU, we had NATO, we had the United Kingdom, Italy, Germany and France, and we were very, very united in all the discussions that we've had."

7. ARAKHAMIA APPROACHING PODIUM

8. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEAD OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT'S MAJORITY FACTION, DAVID ARAKHAMIA, SAYING:

"I think that we are working towards the final goal where it should be not trilateral, it should be multilateral because Europeans have to sit at the table. Because we're talking about European post-war security, Ukraine is part of Europe and European countries have to sit on the table together with us and discuss how the security in Europe will look like."

9. WHITE FLASH

10. (SOUNDBITE) (English) HEAD OF UKRAINIAN PARLIAMENT'S MAJORITY FACTION, DAVID ARAKHAMIA, SAYING:

"The other issues that we cannot disclose at the moment, but we got really big progress, and I encourage you guys to visit Moscow and then come back to us to Dublin and then have a second session and set the date and announce the date for the next session as soon as possible. Because I think that we have a good momentum to bring the solution before the new year comes."

11. REPORTER ASKING QUESTION, KUSHNER APPROACHING PODIUM

12. (SOUNDBITE) (English) US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, JARED KUSHNER, SAYING:

"The reality is there's no trust right now between the sides, and that's to be expected after a conflict like this. But we should rely on interests and incentives and the good architecture in order to do that."

13. WHITE FLASH

14. (SOUNDBITE) (English) US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, JARED KUSHNER, SAYING:

"So these deals are very hard and complex, and this one is very emotional, very complex. It's a very hard war. And so I think that it's complicated. But what we see now, and we've worked very hard at this for the last bit, is we see all the different ingredients to make a deal. And we just have to figure out how we can refine those ingredients, organise those ingredients, and then create the right structure and the right pathway to do it."

15. KUSHNER, ARAKHAMIA, US PRESIDENT'S ENVOY, STEVE WITKOFF, AND OTHER OFFICIALS LEAVING