Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed Wednesday to resume three-way negotiations next month with Washington and Kyiv aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a Kremlin official said, potentially setting up the first such talks since February.
The Russian leader agreed “in principle” to resume the talks after Nov. 10, Putin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters following a meeting in St. Petersburg between Putin and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff.
The talks will focus on “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends,” Ushakov said.
Witkoff’s talks with Putin about Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine took place as U.S. President Donald Trump pushed Kyiv to make a deal that stops the fighting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has insisted that only a summit of leaders can break the impasse. The two armies remain locked on the battlefield, and the countries pummel each other with daily long-range strikes.
Representatives of the three countries held three rounds of negotiations early 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 longstanding basic demands.
Latest proposals to end the war have little of value, Kremlin says
The discussion in St. Petersburg lasted about three hours, the Kremlin said, and came a day after Witkoff met with Zelenskyy 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,” Ushakov said.
However, he later told Russian state TV that while Moscow isn’t “fully satisfied” with the Oslo proposals, they are a step in the right direction.
Witkoff’s meetings suggested leaders are keen to bring new momentum to U.S.-led peace efforts, more than 4½ years after the war began. Efforts by the Trump administration since early last year to end the war have made no significant progress.
Zelenskyy 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,” Zelenskyy said in an interview broadcast Wednesday on Fox News.
Witkoff sees ‘some degree of momentum’ in peace efforts
Witkoff and Putin met at St. Petersburg’s Constantine Palace, with Ushakov and Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev also at the table. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, joined the discussion via a video link, Ushakov said.
Before the meeting, Witkoff said that there was “some degree of momentum” in talks.
During the meeting, Witkoff and Kushner proposed a three-way meeting with the U.S., Russia and Ukraine at the technical level and shared progress on their talks with Zelenskyy a day earlier, according to a U.S. official familiar with the talks who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
Witkoff and Kushner also discussed a postwar economic plan, European security and plans for the upcoming meeting, the official said.
In televised opening remarks, Witkoff thanked Putin for agreeing to send diesel to the U.S., after Trump lifted a ban despite anger from some U.S. lawmakers, adding that the fuel would help reduce prices for American farmers and truckers.
Putin said he was ready to consider prospects for the restoration of U.S.-Russia economic ties and that he was prepared to discuss the U.S.-led conflict with Iran. Moscow stands ready to use its relationship with Tehran to help bring peace, he said.
Ushakov said that “large-scale joint economic projects that offer significant prospects for cooperation” between Russia and the U.S. were discussed in detail with 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. Witkoff said it appeared to be a goodwill gesture by the Kremlin after Trump asked Putin to free Stephen Hubbard.
Putin also met 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 U.S. proposal for U.N. experts to keep monitoring sanctions on Iran.
Putin and Witkoff also discussed a possible meeting next month between the Russian, Chinese and U.S. leaders at an economic summit in China, Ushakov said, adding that Beijing is already preparing for it.
Norway’s prime minister sees a possible ‘new phase’ in talks
After his trip to Russia, Witkoff returned for more consultations in Oslo, where he met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre at the airport before flying back to the U.S. The meeting lasted just over an hour, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported.
“I think we may have entered a phase now where the Russians are also looking for opportunities for diplomacy,” Støre told the broadcaster. He said the new talks were likely to happen in mid-November.
Asked whether Zelenskyy could accept a border running along the current front line, Støre said: “I don’t think Ukraine will ever formally accept it and say that this is the new border. But whether they can live with it is another matter.”
Zelenskyy was still in Oslo on Wednesday, where he visited Norway’s parliament and met with lawmakers.
Zelenskyy said the talks in Oslo and St. Petersburg included discussion of future security guarantees for Ukraine, the fate of occupied territories, postwar reconstruction and the possibility of a ceasefire.
Trump presses Zelenskyy to compromise
At the White House on Tuesday, Trump increased the pressure on Zelenskyy to come to an agreement with Russia as relations between the two leaders have soured again.
“We want Zelenskyy to make a deal,” 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 doesn’t happen, “I think it’s going to be a very bad thing,” Trump said.
Amid fears that Washington was turning its back on Ukraine, Zelenskyy 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.
Russian attacks kill 5 people and wound at least 23 others, Ukraine says
Overnight Russian attacks in Kyiv left three people dead and 12 wounded, 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 others were wounded when drones exploded in a residential area, he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that overnight its forces struck a warehouse, an electrical substation and a bulk carrier at sea that was headed to the Ukrainian port of Odesa.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported Wednesday that its air defenses intercepted 373 Ukrainian drones over multiple Russian regions overnight, as well as the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea.
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
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