For about three hours in a grand imperial palace in St Petersburg, Vladimir Putin sat across from US special envoy Steve Witkoff, and the meeting opened with a gift. Russia freed Stephen Hubbard, a retired US teacher it had been holding. Witkoff was meeting Putin in person for the ninth time.
The Kremlin said Putin conveyed his “in principle” willingness to take part in three-way talks with Washington and Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking to journalists over WhatsApp as he returned to Kyiv from Norway, said Ukraine is interested too.
Dates not yet agreed
The two sides do not agree on timing. Zelenskyy said the meeting should happen no later than early November. “The American side has proposed holding it as soon as possible and we support that,” he said. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov placed it in mid-November, and later told Russian state television Vesti that Abu Dhabi might host it.
Zelenskyy said he had been told Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of the negotiating teams. Kyiv, he said, backs “any proposals for a ceasefire, an end to the war, an energy ceasefire as well as humanitarian initiatives.”
The last US-mediated peace talks took place in February, before the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran. The conflict began more than four and a half years ago with Moscow’s full-scale invasion.
Oslo, then St Petersburg
Witkoff had met Ukrainian and European officials in Norway a day earlier. The prime ministers of Norway and Finland sat in, along with representatives of the European Union and NATO. Witkoff described the Oslo talks as productive, marked by “some degree of momentum.” Afterward Zelenskyy said “very, very important” US intelligence had been restored.
Ushakov said Witkoff briefed Putin on Oslo and mentioned some new aspects in the European and Kyiv approaches, “but there wasn’t really much substance in them.”
Putin thanked President Donald Trump and Witkoff for their efforts. He also offered to help with Iran, noting Moscow’s decades-long relationship with Tehran, and told Witkoff that Russia could supply large quantities of fertiliser to US farmers. The two also discussed a possible meeting next month in China with Trump and Xi Jinping, which the Kremlin said Beijing was already preparing as the first trilateral meeting of its kind.
Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow, said Russia clearly wants sanctions lifted, US sanctions in particular. “The Trump administration is using economic leverage to encourage Moscow to finish this war, including the temporary lifting of US sanctions on Russian diesel sales,” she said.
Distance remains. Trump has lately pressed Ukraine to “make a deal,” saying on Tuesday that it was time to end the war or face “a very bad thing.” US-Ukraine ties have deteriorated sharply since he announced a diesel export deal with Russia earlier this month, and Zelenskyy has accused Washington of slowing the Starshield internet service Ukraine relies on at the front.
The fighting went on. Bryansk Governor Yegor Kovalchuk said a Ukrainian drone attack killed at least one person and wounded two. Ukraine’s emergency service said two people died when a Russian attack hit a high-rise in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district.
