Ukrainian and Russian negotiators met in Abu Dhabi on Friday to tackle the vital issue of territory, with no sign of a compromise, as Russian airstrikes plunged Ukraine into its worst energy crisis of the nearly four-year war.

Kyiv is under mounting U.S. pressure to reach a peace deal in the war triggered by Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, with Moscow demanding Kyiv cede its entire eastern industrial area of Donbas before it stops fighting, Reuters reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the territorial dispute was a central issue for the tripartite talks, including Russian, Ukrainian and U.S. officials, which were scheduled to conclude on Saturday.

“The most important thing is that Russia should be ready to end this war, which it started,” Zelenskiy said in a statement on the Telegram app, adding he was in regular contact with the Ukrainian negotiators, but it was too early to draw conclusions from Friday’s talks.

“We’ll see how the conversation goes tomorrow and what the outcome will be.”

Rustem Umerov, the secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council and the head of its delegation, said in a statement the talks had discussed parameters for ending the war and the “further logic of the negotiation process.”

The negotiations come a day after Zelenskiy met with U.S. President Donald Trump at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

Zelenskiy said on Friday that a deal on U.S. security guarantees for Ukraine was ready, and that he was only waiting on Trump for a specific date and place to sign it.

Ukraine has sought robust security guarantees from Western allies in the event of a peace deal to prevent Russia, which has shown little interest in ending the war, from invading again.

RUSSIA STEPS UP ATTACKS ON POWER INFRASTRUCTURE

The tripartite talks, brokered by the U.S., are unfolding against a backdrop of intensified Russian strikes on Ukraine’s energy system that have cut power and heating to major cities such as Kyiv, as temperatures dip well below freezing.

The head of Ukraine’s top private power producer, Maxim Timchenko, told Reuters on Friday the situation was nearing a “humanitarian catastrophe” and that Ukraine needs a ceasefire that halts attacks on energy infrastructure.

Kyiv’s energy minister said on Thursday that Ukraine’s power grid had endured its most difficult day since a widespread blackout in November 2022, when Russia began bombing energy infrastructure.

Russia says it wants a diplomatic solution but will keep working to achieve its goals by military means as long as a negotiated solution remains elusive.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine surrender the 20% it still holds of the Donetsk region of the Donbas – about 5,000 sq km (1,900 sq miles) – has proven a major stumbling block to a breakthrough deal.

Zelenskiy refuses to give up land that Russia has not been able to capture in four years of grinding, attritional warfare. Polls show little appetite among Ukrainians for territorial concessions.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Russia’s insistence on Ukraine yielding all of Donbas was “a very important condition.”

A source close to the Kremlin told Reuters that Moscow considers an “Anchorage formula” – which Russia says was agreed between Trump and Putin at a summit in Alaska last August – would hand Russia control of all of Donbas and freeze the front lines elsewhere in Ukraine’s east and south.

Donetsk is one of four Ukrainian regions Moscow said in 2022 it was annexing after referendums rejected by Kyiv and Western nations as bogus. Most countries recognise Donetsk as part of Ukraine.

MOSCOW WANTS USE OF FROZEN ASSETS

Russia has also floated the idea of using the bulk of nearly $5 billion of Russian assets frozen in the United States to fund a recovery of Russian-occupied territory inside Ukraine. Ukraine, backed by European allies, demands that Russia pay it reparations.

Asked about Russia’s idea, Zelenskiy dismissed it as “nonsense.”

Zelenskiy said on Thursday in Davos that the Abu Dhabi talks would be the first trilateral meetings involving Ukrainian and Russian envoys and U.S. mediators since the war began.

Last year, Russian and Ukrainian delegations had their first face-to-face meeting since 2022 when they met in Istanbul. A top Ukrainian military intelligence officer also had talks with U.S. and Russian delegations in Abu Dhabi in November.

Sweden’s migration minister on Thursday called on the European Union to establish a common procedure for issuing identification and travel documents to Afghan nationals whose asylum applications have been rejected or who have committed crimes in their host countries.

Minister Johan Forssell said it is currently “more or less impossible” to deport Afghan nationals who do not meet asylum criteria because many lack valid ID or travel documents.

Although the EU has no interest in making “any political arrangements” that could lend legitimacy to Afghanistan’s rulers, Forssell said the bloc’s 27 member states could still reach a technical agreement to issue documentation that would speed up deportations.

“It is a major concern for us that we are seeing quite a few cases of people that have committed crimes, Afghan people that committed crimes in Sweden, and it is more or less impossible to expel them today,” Forssell told The Associated Press on the sidelines of an informal meeting of EU justice and home affairs ministers in the Cypriot capital.

“If you come to Europe and you commit crimes, you have chosen yourself not to be part of our society. And we need to do everything we can to make sure that you are expelled,” he said.

Forssell added that similar challenges exist with failed Syrian asylum seekers, but said Afghan nationals remain the priority.

He said Afghan nationals are largely unable to obtain IDs or passports from their home country because most Afghan embassies in Europe are not recognized by the Islamic Emirate authorities. Forssell noted that the EU’s executive arm has recently had contacts in Kabul on the issue, describing it as a “very positive first step.”

According to him, there is “broad consensus” among many EU countries facing similar challenges to take further steps to accelerate the deportation of failed Afghan asylum seekers or those who have committed crimes.

Forssell said more than half of Afghan asylum applications are expected to be rejected and that “they need to go back home,” warning that public support for accepting refugees who do meet asylum criteria could erode otherwise.

He also proposed that Afghan nationals facing deportation in different EU countries could be grouped together and returned on chartered flights.

European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner said EU member states are engaging at a technical level with Afghanistan’s “effective authorities” to better facilitate repatriations.

Sweden’s traditionally generous asylum policy has tightened over the past decade, amid what Forssell described as growing public concern over the “problems” associated with mass migration. He said these concerns played a key role in the formation of the current government three years ago, which relies on support from the hard-right Sweden Democrats.

Forssell noted that asylum applications in Sweden are at their lowest level since 1985. “So I think we are doing very well and we are really delivering what the Swedish population wants to see from us,” he said.