US and Russia agree to reestablish military-to-military dialogue after Ukraine talks
By KAMILA HRABCHUK and EMMA BURROWS
Associated Press
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The United States and Russia agreed Thursday to reestablish high-level, military-to-military dialogue following a meeting between senior Russian and American military officials in Abu Dhabi, the U.S. military in Europe said.
The agreement was reached following meetings between U.S. Gen. Alexus Grynkewich, who is the commander in Europe of both U.S. and NATO forces, and senior Russian and Ukrainian military officials, the U.S. European Command said in a statement.
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, as relations between Moscow and Washington grew increasingly strained ahead of the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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 appears to be aiming to deny civilians power and weaken public support for the fight, while hostilities continue along the roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line snaking along eastern and southern parts of Ukraine.
An effort to lower tensions
The resumption of the military-to-military hotline marks an effort to lower the tensions that soared since the start of the war in Ukraine and avoid collisions between the Russian and U.S. militaries.
In one such incident in March 2023, the U.S. military said it ditched an Air Force MQ-9 Reaper drone in the Black Sea after a pair of Russian fighter jets dumped fuel on it and then one of them struck its propeller while it was flying in international airspace. Moscow has denied that its warplanes hit the drone, alleging that it crashed while making a sharp maneuver. It said that its aircraft reacted to a violation of a no-flight zone Russia has established in the area near Crimea amid the fighting in Ukraine.
Moscow has repeatedly voiced concern about intelligence flights by the U.S. and other NATO aircraft over the Black Sea, and some Russian officials charged that the U.S. surveillance flights helped gather intelligence that allowed Ukraine to strike Russian targets.
NATO members have been increasingly worried about intrusions into allied airspace, some of them blamed on Russia. Some European officials described the incidents as Moscow testing NATO’s response.
In September, a swarm of Russian drones flew into Poland’s airspace, prompting NATO aircraft to scramble to intercept them and shoot down some of the devices. It was the first direct encounter between NATO and Moscow since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Later that month, NATO jets escorted three Russian warplanes out of Estonia’s airspace.
Russia, Ukraine exchange prisoners following talks
The delegations from Moscow and Kyiv were joined Thursday in the capital of the United Arab Emirates by U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, according to Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defense 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 Russia and Ukraine toward a settlement. At the time, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the issue of who would control the Donbas industrial heartland of eastern Ukraine as “key.”
Officials have provided no information about any progress in the discussions.
Following the talks on Thursday, however, Russia and Ukraine said they had carried out a prisoner exchange. The Russian Defense Ministry said it brought 157 Russian servicemen back from Ukrainian captivity, as well as three Russian nationals captured during Kyiv’s incursion into Russia’s Kursk region. Ukrainian officials said 150 Ukrainian servicemen and seven civilians returned from Russian captivity.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the released Russian soldiers are currently in Belarus, getting necessary medical assistance, before being taken back to Russia “for treatment and rehabilitation.”
Ukrainian human rights ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said that among the 150 service members who returned from Russian captivity, “18 had been illegally sentenced by Russia.” He said that “overall, those released are in a difficult psychological condition, and some are critically underweight.”
Zelenskyy says 55,000 Ukrainian troops killed in the war
Zelenskyy said 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.
Zelenskyy has repeatedly said his country needs security guarantees from the U.S. and Europe to deter any postwar Russian attacks.
Ukrainians must feel that there is genuine progress toward peace and “not toward a scenario in which the Russians exploit everything to their advantage and continue their strikes,” Zelenskyy said on social media late Wednesday.
Last year saw a 31% increase in Ukrainian civilian casualties compared with 2024, the advocacy group Human Rights Watch said in a report published Wednesday.
Almost 15,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed and just over 40,000 injured since the start of the war through last December, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine.
Also Thursday, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk arrived in Kyiv on an official visit.
Two people were injured in the Ukrainian capital as a result of overnight Russian drone strikes, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. In the wider Kyiv region, a man suffered a shrapnel chest wound, authorities said.
Russia fired 183 drones and two ballistic missiles at Ukraine overnight, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Russian air defenses downed 95 Ukrainian drones overnight over several regions, the Azov Sea and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2016, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.
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Burrows reported from London.
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Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
