Witkoff & Kushner Fly to Abu Dhabi for Second Russia-Ukraine-US Trilateral, Feb 4–5

Back-channel envoys shaping front-line wars recalls Henry Kissinger’s secret 1971 Beijing visit that set the stage for the 1972 Shanghai Communiqué: unofficial actors cracked doors formal diplomats could not. Hosting the talks in oil-rich Abu Dhabi echoes Doha’s 2008 mediation in Lebanon and the UAE’s 2020 Abraham Accords, signalling the Gulf’s two-decade ascent as a neutral negotiating hub and the broader diffusion of diplomatic gravity away from Washington and Geneva. It also highlights a persistent U.S. trend since 2017 of outsourcing delicate files to politically connected deal-makers rather than the career State Department, a move that can either yield nimble breakthroughs or undercut institutional expertise. On a 100-year timeline this round matters only if it births a durable mechanism—cease-fire lines, monitoring regimes, reparations—otherwise it risks becoming another Paris 1919-style conference whose lofty words failed to prevent renewed conflict. Still, the willingness of the GRU chief and Ukraine’s spy master to share a table points to war-fatigue on both sides, hinting at a possible Korea-style frozen front that could shape Eurasian security for decades.