Abu Dhabi: Washington summons Moscow and Kyiv to talk "peace" and carve up influence

The facts first. According to Le Monde, the American envoy Steve Witkoff has announced talks between Moscow and Kyiv, on Tuesday 10 and Wednesday 11 November in Abu Dhabi, under Washington's mediation. They "will focus on post-war security arrangements, de-escalation, humanitarian efforts and the next steps towards peace" (our translation, from Le Monde). Meanwhile, according to the same paper, Russian bombardments in the Zaporizhzhia oblast have killed at least 26 people. That is the backdrop: talks are announced, and civilians keep dying.

At this stage, we know almost nothing. No list of delegations, no detailed agenda, no ceasefire timetable in the dispatch. We also do not know what Kyiv or Moscow has agreed to. What follows is therefore our reading, not an established fact.

Let us ask the question early: cui bono? Look at the vocabulary. "Post-war security arrangements": translate that and you get who guarantees what, and who moves in where. It is not only about drawing a line on a map. It is about which zones, which resources and which markets will be opened to which capital, and under the protection of which army.

Leninist tradition offers a simple grid here. When capitalism is dominated by blocs of banks and industries, it seeks outlets, raw materials and markets beyond its borders, and collides with its rivals. Sanctions, arms contracts, gas pipelines, military alliances: this is the political envelope of that competition. Lenin asked what other means than war could resolve the gap between real economic strength and the division of spheres of influence. A negotiating table in Abu Dhabi is the diplomatic version of the same answer: same question, different set.

The mediator is not a neutral referee. Washington is a party to the matter: arms supplier, pillar of the alliance that frames Kyiv, a power with its own interests in the post-war order. Calling it "mediation" when it is the most deeply involved power is the sort of elegance the "rules-based order" knows how to produce. As for the venue, a Gulf petro-monarchy, it says quite enough about who enjoys hosting the powerful and doing business with everyone.

Which leaves the great absentee: the population. The 26 dead of Zaporizhzhia, the soldiers sent to the front, the Ukrainian and Russian workers who will pay for the reconstruction, the debt and the rearmament. "Humanitarian efforts" appear on the agenda, but far behind security. For whom will we rebuild, and with what loans? Who will cash the contracts? These are the questions the communiqués do not ask.

We will see in Abu Dhabi whether they negotiate the peace of peoples or the peace of portfolios. My bet: the latter, for as long as those who are dying have no say at the table.