US, Russia agree to re-establish military-to-military dialogue
The US and Russia agreed on Thursday to reestablish high level military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior Russian and American military officials in Abu Dhabi, the United States European Command said in a statement.
The agreement was reached following meetings between Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, the Commander of US European Command -- who is also NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe -- and senior Russian and Ukrainian military officials, the statement said.
The channel “will provide a consistent military-to-military contact as the parties continue to work towards a lasting peace,” the statement said. High level military communication was suspended in 2021, just before Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine.
Grynkewich was in the capital of the United Arab Emirates where talks between American, Russian and Ukrainian officials on ending the war in Ukraine entered a second day and as Moscow escalated its attacks on Ukraine’s power grid.
Russia continues to target Ukraine's electricity network, aiming to deny civilians power and weaken their appetite for the fight, while fighting continues along the roughly 1,000-kilometre (600-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern partsof Ukraine.
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed that 55,000 Ukrainian troops have died since Russia's invasion almost four years ago. “And there is a large number of people whom Ukraine considers missing,” he added in an interview broadcast by French TV channel France 2 late Wednesday.
The last time Zelenskyy gave a figure for battlefield deaths, in early 2025, he said 46,000 Ukrainian troops had been killed. The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined Thursday in the capital of the United Arab Emirates by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to Rustem Umerov, Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council chief, who was present at the meeting.
They were also at last month's talks in the same place as the Trump administration tries to steer the two countries toward a settlement. At the time, Zelenskyy described the issue of who would control the Donbas industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine as key. Workers cleaning up damage at Darnytsia Thermal Power Plant.
