“a new European security order,” Russian representatives set conditions during unofficial talks on ending the war in Ukraine, Glavred reported on November 13, 2026.
Moscow demands the entirety of the Donbas region. It wants a non-aligned status for Ukraine that excludes NATO membership.
The proposals also encompass the demilitarization of the ports of Mykolaiv and Odesa. They bar Kyiv from using them as naval bases.
European representatives were introduced to these provisions during negotiations in Abu Dhabi, according to BILD. The plan extends to European security arrangements, calling for Finland to exit the alliance and for NATO to abandon military bases in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The Russian framework proposes transforming Moldova into a federation comprising Moldova, Gagauzia, and Transnistria. In exchange, Moscow indicates willingness to withdraw nuclear weaponry from Belarus, halt the deployment of medium-range missiles there, and pull back its military contingent from Transnistria.
Vladimir Medinsky said the new security system in Europe was a central topic during the two days of talks in Abu Dhabi.
High-ranking Russian Foreign Ministry representative Alexey Drobinigin outlined several options for such arrangements at a security conference in Moscow, saying that these could include mutual assistance agreements similar to those Moscow maintains with Belarus and North Korea, political non-interference arrangements like the pact with Iran, and bilateral mutual non-aggression pacts.
Reports say United States special envoy Jared Kushner has drawn inspiration from the NATO-Russia Council model created in 2002 and suspended in 2014. BILD said that the Kremlin seeks to retain control over all occupied Ukrainian territories while securing the entire Donbas, encompassing areas of Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts still under Kyiv’s control.
Alexey Drobinigin, head of the foreign policy planning department at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, outlined potential bilateral arrangements during a security conference in Moscow. He detailed three options: collective defense pacts, political non-interference agreements modeled after Moscow’s accord with Iran, and mutual non-aggression pacts.
“For example, agreements of this kind could be concluded, in particular, with individual NATO member states, which would then receive, say, additional individual security guarantees from the Russian Federation,” Alexey Drobinigin said according to European Pravda.
These diplomatic overtures are designed to fracture Western unity, according to Andriy Ilienko, an officer in the National Guard of Ukraine.
“They are applying pressure because they are waging aggressive propaganda on the territory of Europe, anti-Ukrainian and anti-European propaganda that is specifically aimed at dividing Europe, at ensuring that Europe ceases to be united, say, in countering Russian aggression and supporting Ukraine, so that Europe weakens, so that Europe stops helping Ukraine, and so on,” Ilienko told Apostrophe.
He added that such proposals could aim to secure pledges from individual states preventing them from aiding Ukraine or engaging in conflict if another NATO member is attacked.
“Perhaps they will want to write that these states must under no circumstances, for example, wage war with Russia, even if Russia attacks another NATO country. That is, this may be such an attempt to divide NATO. Perhaps they will want to write in there that these states must not supply weaponry and aid to Russia. And that otherwise it will be,” Ilienko said on Apostrophe TV.
The talks in Abu Dhabi involved Ukraine, the United States, and Russia. Vladimir Medinsky led the Russian delegation and identified European security architecture as a central theme.
United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio characterized the engagements as “very productive” after the initial round of discussions held on November 10, while emphasizing that significant work remains ahead.