Three-way talks between the United States, Russia, and Ukraine could resume in November. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this, following statements from the Kremlin that it was ready for such talks.
“We’ve received feedback that Russia supports a three-way meeting between our teams. The American side is proposing that we hold it as soon as possible. We support that,” he said late on October 21.
Zelensky gave no specific dates for the possible meetings, saying only that the United States was “doing everything possible” to arrange them sooner. “I think no later than early November,” he said.
Zelensky said that, alongside ending the war and bringing peace closer, the negotiators’ main task would be to prepare for a meeting between the leaders. He said Kyiv would support any ceasefire — full or partial — at the talks.
Yesterday afternoon, after U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said talks could begin in mid-November. Russia, he said, was ready to resume negotiations “on the main issue,” which “concerns establishing a security framework for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends.” Ushakov said the talks could begin in mid-November, immediately after the U.S. congressional midterm elections.
Ushakov said, however, that the “new approaches” Witkoff presented to Putin, which had been announced ahead of the meeting, contained “not all that much that was useful for resolving the Ukrainian crisis.” But when later asked whether the war was nearing an end, he suggested that “things are heading that way.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said today that the talks could take place in Abu Dhabi. Asked whether Russia would prepare any documents for signing at the meeting, Peskov said: “You’re getting ahead of yourself. Don’t do that.”
Witkoff flew from St. Petersburg to Oslo, where he briefed allies on his conversation with Putin. He then wrote on social media that three-way talks would “continue at the technical level.”
Commenting on Witkoff’s visits to Oslo and St. Petersburg, U.S. President Donald Trump said he believed an end to the war was now “perhaps closer than ever.” He said he had spoken to Putin about it himself “the other day.”
Despite both sides’ statements that they were willing to negotiate, they continued exchanging strikes overnight. Russia attacked Ukraine with ballistic missiles, killing one person and injuring more than 20 in Kyiv. Zelensky said the attack showed there had been no “real changes in [Russia’s] attitude toward everything that is happening.”
Ukraine, in turn, launched drone strikes on several Russian regions, including Moscow and the surrounding Moscow region. Two people were injured in the Novaya Moskva district.
The war in photographs: The aftermath of an overnight Russian strike on Kyiv
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