Abu Dhabi Talks: Empty or Substantial?

Alexander Mercouris is going to have a live stream today described as “the Abu Dhabi talks have accomplished nothing”. Gilbert Doctorow is saying here that these talks are accomplishing a lot. There are two tracks in the negotiations, one involving military intelligence and the other involving economic reconstruction. The negotiations are based on the 28-point document issued by Kirill Dmitriev and Steve Witkoff in November that was originally rejected by Ukraine. It requires the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the whole of the Donbass before any other agreements are implemented. It states that there will be elections in what remains of Ukraine in 100 days after that. These elections will be held under UN auspices with UN peacekeepers to keep the UkroNazis from lynching all the candidates. Zelensky will get an offramp so he won’t be lynched too, and will be replaced by a president who will agree to Ukrainian neutrality. Russia will achieve its objectives without having to march the army all the way to Kiev. On the reconstruction side, Russia will provide provide something like 400 billion dollars, mostly from Russian frozen assets in Europe and the US. There will be several hundred billion more coming from US investment in a joint reconstruction effort. It will be interesting to compare this with what Alexander is going to say in his live stream today.