The two-day trilateral meetings come after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had exploited a U.S.-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions.

A damaged residential building following a Russian overnight drone attack in Odesa on Wednesday.Oleksandr Gimanov / AFP via Getty Images

Ukrainian and Russian negotiators began a second round of U.S.-brokered talks in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday, seeking to advance efforts to end Europe`s biggest conflict since World War II.

The two-day trilateral meetings come after President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that Russia had exploited a U.S.-backed energy truce last week to stockpile munitions, attacking Ukraine with a record number of ballistic missiles on Tuesday.

"Another round of negotiations has begun in Abu Dhabi. The negotiation process started in a trilateral format - Ukraine, the United States, and Russia," Rustem Umerov, Ukraine`s top negotiator, said on Telegram.

Umerov said that teams would also meet in separate groups to discuss specific negotiation tracks and would then follow up with a joint meeting to synchronize positions.

Over the past year, President Donald Trump`s administration has pushed both Kyiv and Moscow to find a compromise to end the four-year conflict, triggered by Russia`s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, but the two sides remain far apart on key points despite several rounds of talks with U.S. officials.

The most sensitive issues are Moscow`s demands that Kyiv give up land it still controls and the fate of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, Europe`s largest, which sits in a Russian-occupied area.

Moscow wants Kyiv to pull its troops out of all of the eastern Donetsk region, including a belt of heavily fortified cities regarded as one of Ukraine`s strongest defences, as a precondition for any deal.

Ukraine said the conflict should be frozen along the current front line and has rejected any unilateral pullback of its forces.

Russia currently occupies about 20% of Ukraine`s national territory, including Crimea and parts of the eastern Donbas region seized before the 2022 invasion.

Military analysts have said that Russian forces have gained about 1.5% of Ukrainian territory since the start of 2024.

Polls show that the majority of Ukrainians oppose a deal that hands Moscow land. Kyiv residents told Reuters on Wednesday they were sceptical the new round of talks would bring any major breakthroughs.

"Let`s hope that it will change (something), of course. But I don`t believe it will change anything now. We will not give in, and they will not give in either," Serhii, 38, a taxi driver, told Reuters.

The first round of talks was held in the UAE last month, marking the first direct public negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv.