Severe budget troubles drove Russia back to peace talks after nine-month pause

The Kremlin is finally "starting to feel the heat", he highlighted.

"Just read what happened over the past week to Russian oil refining. Eight or nine refineries out of 15 are already out of commission. There was a very fine strike on the port of Ust-Luga — one of Russia's key export hubs on the Baltic Sea. We don't even talk about the Black Sea anymore; nobody wants to sail there because the risks are insane."

The deterioration of the Russian economy is a gradual yet irreversible process, Ohryzko emphasized.

"If you imagine that by the end of the month, Ukrainian Defense Forces knock out another five or six refineries and a few more ports on the Baltic, then a simple question will arise among the people standing closest to Putin: 'What do we do next, dear Supreme Commander-in-Chief? We have nothing to fuel not only civilian cars, but also the vehicles of our "heroic" armed forces. We have nothing to heat buildings with because there is no fuel oil for thermal power plants, and so on. Prices are rising, and people have no money,'" the diplomat said.

Ohryzko characterized the Abu Dhabi meetings as a sign that Moscow is beginning to look for ways "to wrap up this process, because it will only get worse from here." However, he stressed that Russia is attempting to pressure other negotiating participants into accepting "some sort of general peace framework while continuing to wage war."

"Russia needs a smokescreen — a smokescreen of peace talks until the moment when it feels, when Putin says: 'We've hit a dead end, there is nowhere left to go, we are stopping.' And that message will have to come specifically from Russian businessmen, the Russian inner circle surrounding Putin. Because when that happens, real negotiations will begin," he added.

Two days of trilateral talks involving Ukraine, the United States, and Russia concluded in Abu Dhabi on Nov. 11, 2026, yielding an agreement on a large-scale prisoner-of-war exchange. Following the trilateral sessions, the Ukrainian delegation held separate coordination meetings with European representatives also present in the United Arab Emirates. Before the UAE round, the last trilateral peace negotiations took place in Geneva, Switzerland, on Feb. 17–18.