Putin agrees to resume talks on Ukraine war with Kyiv and Washington

Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to resume three-way negotiations next month with Washington and Kyiv aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a Kremlin official said.

The Russian leader has agreed “in principle” to resume the talks after November 10, Mr Putin’s foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters following a meeting in St Petersburg between Mr Putin and US President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff.

The talks will focus on “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends”, Mr Ushakov said.

Mr Witkoff’s talks with Mr Putin about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine came as Mr Trump pushes Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has insisted that only a summit of leaders can break the impasse. The two armies remain locked on the battlefield, and the two countries pummel each other with daily long-range strikes.

Representatives of the three countries held three rounds of negotiations earlier this year, meeting twice in Abu Dhabi in January and February, followed by further talks in Geneva in February.

However, little progress was reported beyond exchanges of prisoners of war as Moscow and Kyiv stuck to their basic demands.

The discussion in St Petersburg lasted about three hours, the Kremlin said, and came a day after Mr Witkoff met Mr Zelensky and some European leaders in Norway’s capital, Oslo.

The proposals from the Oslo meeting “contained little of real value in the context of resolving the Ukrainian crisis”, Mr Ushakov said.

However, he later told Russian state TV that while Moscow is not “fully satisfied” with the Oslo proposals, they are a step in the right direction.

Mr Witkoff’s meetings suggested leaders are keen to bring new momentum to US-led peace efforts, more than four years after the war began. Efforts by the Trump administration since early last year to end the war have made no significant progress.

Mr Zelensky said freezing the conflict in Ukraine was the “minimum” required from Russia to bring about an end to the war.

“Right now, we have to freeze, and I think this is (the) real way to end this war,” Mr Zelensky said in an interview broadcast on Wednesday on Fox News.

Mr Witkoff and Mt Putin met at St Petersburg’s Constantine Palace, with Mr Ushakov and Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev also at the table. Mr Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, joined the discussion via a video link, Mr Ushakov said.

Before the meeting, Mr Witkoff said that “there is some degree of momentum” in talks.

During the meeting, Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner proposed a three-way meeting with the US, Russia and Ukraine at the technical level and shared progress on their talks with Mr Zelensky a day earlier, according to a US official familiar with the talks.

Mr Witkoff thanked Mr Putin for agreeing to send diesel to the US, after Mr Trump lifted a ban despite anger from some US politicians, adding that the fuel would help reduce prices for American farmers and lorry drivers.

Mr Putin said he was ready to consider prospects for the restoration of US-Russia economic ties, adding that he was also prepared to discuss the US-led conflict with Iran. Moscow stands ready to use its relationship with Tehran to help bring peace, he said.

Mr Ushakov said that “large-scale joint economic projects that offer significant prospects for co-operation” between Russia and the US were discussed in detail with Mr Witkoff.

“Some of these are, in fact, nearing the implementation stage,” he said.

In other developments, Russia on Wednesday released a retired American teacher who had been imprisoned on charges of fighting as a mercenary in Ukraine. Mr Witkoff said it appeared to be a goodwill gesture by the Kremlin after Mr Trump asked Mr Putin to free Stephen Hubbard.

Mr Putin also met on Wednesday with Chinese premier Li Qiang, who was in St Petersburg for talks with other Russian officials, the Kremlin said.

Russia has cultivated its ties with China, and the two countries last month vetoed a US proposal for UN experts to keep monitoring sanctions on Iran.

Mr Putin and Mr Witkoff also discussed a possible meeting next month between the Russian, Chinese and US leaders at an economic summit in China, Mr Ushakov said, adding that Beijing is already preparing for it.

Mr Witkoff planned to return to Oslo for more consultations after his trip to Russia, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said.

“I think we may have entered a phase now where the Russians are also looking for opportunities for diplomacy,” Mr Store told Norwegian broadcaster NRK on Wednesday.

Mr Zelensky was still in Oslo early Wednesday, where he visited Norway’s parliament and met politicians.

Mr Zelensky said the talks in Oslo and St Petersburg included discussion of future security guarantees for Ukraine, the fate of occupied territories, post-war reconstruction and the possibility of a ceasefire.

At the White House on Tuesday, Mr Trump increased the pressure on Mr Zelensky to come to an agreement with Russia as relations between the two leaders have soured again.

“We want Zelensky to make a deal,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office. “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. We’ve gotten absolutely nothing back except grief, death, tremendous monetary loss.”

If that does not happen “I think it’s going to be a very bad thing”, Mr Trump said.

Amid fears that Washington was turning its back on Ukraine, Mr Zelensky said Kyiv is once again receiving early warnings from its partners about incoming Russian missiles, after recent strikes that he said occurred without enough notice from allies.

Overnight Russian attacks in Kyiv left three people dead and 12 injured, while 10 residential buildings were damaged, the city’s military administration said.

Energy facilities were targeted in Kyiv and three other cities in Russian attacks early Wednesday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Serhii Koretskyi said. Outside the eastern city of Kharkiv, two people died and 11 were wounded when drones exploded in a residential area, he said.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that its forces overnight struck a warehouse, an electrical substation and a bulk carrier at sea that was headed to the Ukrainian port of Odesa.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported on Wednesday that its air defences overnight intercepted 373 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions, as well as illegally annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.