Ukraine and Allies Fix Security Guarantees in Brussels Before Abu Dhabi

Security advisers from Ukraine, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, the European Commission and NATO met in Brussels on Thursday for a second day of talks on the security guarantees Ukraine would get after the war. The session, held at NATO headquarters and led on the Ukrainian side by Rustem Umerov, followed a first day on postwar reconstruction and the cost of the war in 2027. It came as Russia and Ukraine traded airstrikes overnight, the Associated Press reported, and five days before Ukrainian, Russian and American teams are due to meet in Abu Dhabi for US mediated talks on ending the war.

Two days, two subjects

The European Commission hosted the first day on Wednesday, November 4. Delegations worked on a Prosperity Plan for Ukraine, a document on postwar reconstruction, investment and growth being prepared with the World Bank and the US investment firm BlackRock. The sides agreed on next steps and deadlines, but no details were released. Ukraine also presented its estimate of what the war will cost in 2027, the deficit it needs partners to close, and possible funding sources. No figures were published. Thursday's session turned to security guarantees and a new postwar European security architecture. Umerov said the guarantees have to work as an effective system, not as a political declaration. Ukraine also convened an extraordinary Ukraine NATO Council meeting at the level of permanent representatives, chaired by NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, according to Ukraine's mission to NATO.

Zelenskiy: adapt, and send Patriots

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy spent Thursday making two points in public. In an interview broadcast on Ukrainian television, reported by Reuters, he said Ukraine must adapt to the new political realities in the United States after Democrats won control of both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, and build its dialogue with Washington on that basis. He said the country's main priority was air defence, above all interceptors for its Patriot systems, as the war passes the four and a half year mark. He also said he was working to keep enough F-16 fighter jets operating over the next five to six months. On Brussels, Zelenskiy said officials from the EU, NATO and the US were making some progress on proposals for security guarantees. US envoy Jared Kushner, writing on X, called the talks productive and substantive. Late Wednesday, Zelenskiy had held a 90 minute conversation with US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Kushner, and he has asked that any guarantees be, in his word, ironclad.

Abu Dhabi is the test

The Brussels meetings exist because of what happens next. US, Russian and Ukrainian teams meet in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11. Witkoff announced the round on November 3, listing postwar security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian measures and next steps toward ending the war. No European capital sits at that table, so the parameters agreed in Brussels are Europe's way of shaping the position Kyiv and Washington carry into the room. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Abu Dhabi agenda is the security guarantees of the parties, a phrase that puts Russia's own security demands in the same sentence as Ukraine's, and said the details would stay behind closed doors. Russia's delegation will again be led by Vladimir Medinsky, Peskov said.

Why it matters

Every previous round in this process has failed on the same question: who guarantees Ukraine's security the day after a deal, and with what force behind the promise. Brussels cannot answer that question on its own, because the guarantee Ukraine wants most is American, and the terms will be set in rooms where Russia is present. What Brussels can do, and did this week, is fix a shared Western position before Abu Dhabi, attach a reconstruction plan and a 2027 war budget to it, and make clear that Europe plans for another year of war if the talks fail. The overnight airstrikes are the reminder that all of this is being negotiated while the war continues at full pace.

What happens next

The delegations leave Brussels with proposals, not signatures. The Abu Dhabi round on November 10 and 11 is where those proposals meet the Russian delegation for the first time in this cycle. Watch three things: whether the word guarantee gains a force size or a named enforcer, whether air defence deliveries are announced alongside the talks, and whether the 2027 financing estimate Ukraine presented in Brussels becomes a public number. None of the four main voices this week, Zelenskiy, Kushner, Witkoff or Peskov, has yet given a figure, a force size or a named enforcer.

Key numbers

• Brussels talks: November 4 and 5, 2026, reconstruction first, security guarantees second
• Zelenskiy call with Witkoff and Kushner: 90 minutes on November 4
• Abu Dhabi talks: November 10 and 11, 2026
• War duration: past the four and a half year mark
• Ukraine's 2027 war cost estimate: presented in Brussels, figure not published