ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy met with the leader of the United Arab Emirates on Monday as momentum grows for potential peace talks ending Moscow’s war on the country.
U.S. President Donald Trump last week suggested he would be meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia. The UAE, home to Abu Dhabi and Dubai, has long been floated as a possible site for peace talks as well, given the large population of Russian and Ukrainian expatriates who have flooded the country since the war began, and due to the Emirates’ work on prisoner exchanges in the past.
Zelenskyy arrived in Abu Dhabi on Sunday night after attending the Munich Security Conference in Germany. Footage released by his office showed him and his wife, Olena Zelenska, being greeted by an Emirati official and honor guard at the airport late Sunday night.
Zelenska has traveled to the UAE since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022, but this trip is Zelenskyy’s first to the UAE since the war began.
“Our top priority is bringing even more of our people home from captivity,” Zelenskyy’s office said in messages online. “We will also focus on investments and economic partnership, as well as a large-scale humanitarian program.”
The United Arab Emirates’ state-run WAM news agency did not immediately report on Zelenskyy’s arrival, which was unusual.
Later on Monday, Zelenskyy’s office posted video of him meeting Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the leader of the UAE and ruler of Abu Dhabi.
Zelenskyy said the meeting included officials signing a deal that “maximally liberalizes access to the UAE market for almost all Ukrainian goods.”
Ukrainian Economy Minister Yuliia Svyrydenko in a Facebook post called the deal “truly a historic event” as it was the country’s first with a Gulf Arab state. Officials also agreed to create a Ukraine-UAE Investment Council.
“I am confident that this agreement will provide a strong boost to our economies, strengthen cooperation in key sectors, and lay the foundation for long-term, stable engagement between our countries,” the minister wrote.
Zelenskyy’s visit to Abu Dhabi came as it hosts its biennial International Defense Exhibition and Conference arms show this week, where both Ukraine and Russia have displayed arms — even as Moscow faces Western sanctions over the war.
While Ukraine wasn’t selling any of the weapons, its presence at the fair was crucial, said Ivan Sybyriakov, senior manager of the Unmanned Systems Center at the SPETS Techno Export.
“It is very important to show that Ukraine is not a victim of the war,” he said. “Ukraine is the defender of Europe.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha visited Ukraine’s stands Monday afternoon, even as Russian tried to sell helicopters and other weaponry at the fair.
“Our capacity now we could produce 4 million drones per year despite the war,” Sybiha told journalists. “We could test the drones or our products immediately on the battlefield. That’s why they are really of the high quality. So I’m really proud, as a minister of a country in war, to visit the exposition.”
Russian money continues to flood into Dubai’s red-hot real estate market. Daily flights between the Emirates and Moscow provide a lifeline for both those fleeing conscription and the Russian elite. The U.S. Treasury under former President Joe Biden also expressed concerns about the amount of Russian cash flowing into the Arabian Peninsula country.
Zelenskyy’s visit comes as Denis Manturov, Russia’s first deputy prime minister, visited earlier Sunday with UAE leader Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the country’s president and ruler of Abu Dhabi. A readout from WAM described the talks as focusing on “growing UAE-Russia ties and ways to advance shared interests, benefiting both nations and their peoples.”
Meanwhile, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a delegation to Saudi Arabia this week for direct talks with Russia over the war. He will meet his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and other officials in Saudi Arabia on Tuesday. Ukraine will not be present at the talks.
The outreach and Trump’s direct call with Putin have upended years of U.S. policy under Biden that isolated Moscow over its Feb. 24, 2022, full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Sybiha declined to answer a question from a journalist about what he would say to his American counterpart ahead of the meeting.
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Associated Press writer Hanna Arhirova in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.
