Both Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy now say they back a U.S. proposal for three-way talks on ending the war in Ukraine.
Putin gave his answer to Steve Witkoff, the U.S. special envoy, during a three-hour meeting in a grand imperial palace in St Petersburg on Wednesday. The Kremlin said the Russian president is ready “in principle” to engage. It was the ninth time Witkoff has met Putin in person. Russia opened the session with a goodwill gesture, freeing Stephen Hubbard, a retired U.S. teacher it had been holding.
Zelenskyy spoke to journalists over WhatsApp as he flew back to Kyiv from Norway. He said Ukraine wants the meeting to happen no later than early November. “We have received feedback that… Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of our [negotiating] teams,” he said. “The American side has proposed holding it as soon as possible and we support that.” He added that Kyiv backs “any proposals for a ceasefire, an end to the war, an energy ceasefire as well as humanitarian initiatives.”
Different dates in view
Moscow is thinking of a later start. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin told Witkoff that Russia is ready to resume the talks and that they could take place in mid-November. Ushakov later told the Russian state channel Vesti that Abu Dhabi might host them.
Ushakov said Witkoff briefed Putin on the talks he held a day earlier in Oslo with Ukrainian and European officials. “He mentioned some new aspects in the approaches of the Europeans and Kyiv … but there wasn’t really much substance in them,” Ushakov told reporters. The prime ministers of Norway and Finland attended the Oslo meeting, along with representatives of the European Union and NATO. Witkoff called it productive and said it had “some degree of momentum.” Afterward, Zelenskyy said “very, very important” U.S. intelligence had been restored.
The last U.S.-mediated peace talks took place in February, before the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
Pressure and side deals
Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow, said Russia clearly wants international sanctions lifted, U.S. ones 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.
Putin thanked President Donald Trump and Witkoff for their efforts. He also offered help with Iran, pointing to Moscow’s decades-long relationship with Tehran, and told Witkoff that Russia could ship large quantities of fertiliser to the United States for farmers. A possible meeting next month in China between Trump and Xi Jinping also came up. The Kremlin said Beijing was already preparing what it called the first trilateral meeting of its kind.
The two sides remain far apart on the terms of a peace deal. Trump has recently pushed Ukraine harder to “make a deal.” On Tuesday he said it was time for Ukraine to end the war or face “a very bad thing.”
US-Ukraine ties have worsened sharply since Trump announced a diesel export deal with Russia earlier this month. Zelenskyy has also accused Washington of slowing Starshield, the military-grade counterpart of Starlink, which Ukraine relies on at the front.
The fighting went on while the diplomats talked. Governor Yegor Kovalchuk said a Ukrainian drone attack in Russia’s Bryansk region killed at least one person and wounded two on Wednesday. Ukraine’s emergency service said two people died in a Russian attack on a high-rise in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district.
