Negotiators from Russia, Ukraine and the US have been meeting in Abu Dhabi for their first trilateral talks since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
But whilst the talks take a new format, the core differences remain the same.
The stakes are high, but expectations are limited.
Donald Trump is pushing hard for a peace deal in Ukraine – the one he promised but hasn't yet delivered – and he said this week that the two sides would be stupid if they couldn't agree.
But despite some intense shuttle diplomacy by his own envoys, they are hosting the first trilateral talks involving Ukrainian and Russian negotiators with some major issues still unresolved.
Ukraine is engaging with the process because it wants peace more than anyone, but also because it needs to keep the US onside. It learned that lesson the hard way last year, when Donald Trump briefly suspended intelligence sharing and military aid.
Now, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky says his talks with Trump in Davos were really positive and he hopes for more air defence support against Russia's relentless attacks as a result.
Often grim-faced after his encounters with the US leader, this time Zelensky seemed unusually upbeat.
But he remains cautious on the outcome of talks in the United Arab Emirates. He has described the meetings, which may last two days, as a step, but shied away from calling it a positive one.
We have to wish it will push us a bit closer to peace, is how he put it.
For a while, Zelensky has talked about being 90% of the way to producing a framework deal for peace, but the final 10% was always going to be the hardest - and Russia could still reject the whole thing.
Russia insists that Ukraine should hand over the big slice of the eastern Donbas region, which it has failed to win on the battlefield. Ukraine refuses.
The other big issue up for discussion in the UAE is what the US would do, militarily, if Russia were to invade Ukraine again someday. That's what Ukraine calls its security guarantees, and says are essential.
As for trusting Vladimir Putin, no one here is under any illusions that his aims have changed. He really doesn't want it, is what Zelensky said in Davos about Putin and peace.
