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Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday that Moscow is ready to resume three-way negotiations with Ukraine and the United States, but only if they address security arrangements within a final peace settlement rather than a temporary halt to the fighting.
“The goal of these discussions will be to address the issue of ensuring security for both Ukraine and Russia... within the framework of a final agreement, not after some kind of short pause in fighting,” Putin told a reporter from state television.
The remarks put a public condition on the willingness to return to the table that the Kremlin first signaled a day earlier.
They also draw a line against the ceasefire-first approach that Ukraine and several European governments have favored in recent weeks.
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Wednesday that Putin told U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff, during about three hours of talks in St. Petersburg, that Russia is “in principle” ready to resume trilateral negotiations.
Ushakov said they could take place after Nov. 10, possibly in mid-November, and that Abu Dhabi was a possible venue, according to Russian state media. No date has been formally set.
Ushakov said the focus would be “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends.” He said the proposals Witkoff brought from talks in Oslo the previous day contained little of real substance, though he later said Moscow was not “fully satisfied” but saw them as a step in the right direction.
Witkoff, who was joined by Jared Kushner by video link, said there was “some degree of momentum” in the diplomacy. It was Witkoff’s ninth in-person meeting with Putin and the first U.S. envoy visit to Russia since Sept. 5.
The meeting opened with Russia’s release of Stephen Hubbard, a retired American teacher imprisoned on mercenary charges, which Witkoff described as a goodwill gesture after President Donald Trump asked for his freedom.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who met Witkoff and European officials in Oslo on Tuesday, said Kyiv had received word that Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of negotiating teams. He said he wants it “no later than early November,” earlier than the timeline Moscow has floated.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine backs “any proposals for a ceasefire, an end to the war, an energy ceasefire as well as humanitarian initiatives.” He also said U.S. intelligence sharing with Ukraine had been restored.
In an interview with Fox News, he said a freeze along the current front line is the “minimum” Russia must accept, and that “right now, we have to freeze.”
Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, who took part in the Oslo meeting, said Russia may now be “looking for opportunities for diplomacy.”
Zelenskyy has said for weeks that only a meeting of leaders can break the deadlock and has called for a trilateral summit with Putin and Trump. In late September he also said Ukraine was ready for an energy ceasefire.
Putin has repeatedly declined to meet Zelenskyy on neutral ground, and the Kremlin has said direct talks must take place in Moscow, a condition Kyiv rejects.
Separately, U.S. media reported that Putin proposed a three-way summit with Trump and Chinese leader Xi Jinping, possibly on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen on Nov. 18 and 19, with no role for Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed discussions were under way but said nothing had been agreed.
A senior U.S. official said Trump had not committed to attend but could be receptive. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said such a meeting would do “only the opposite” of helping end the war.
Zelenskyy said Trump, Putin and Xi could hold their own discussions, but that Ukraine must take part in any talks about its future. He distinguished that from the three-way format he has proposed with the United States and Russia.
Three rounds of U.S.-brokered trilateral talks took place early this year, two in Abu Dhabi and one in Geneva. They yielded little beyond prisoner exchanges. The last U.S.-mediated talks were in February, before the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
Trump said Tuesday, “We want Zelenskyy to make a deal,” and warned that failure to do so would be “a very bad thing.”
Earlier this month, Washington announced a diesel export arrangement with Russia and temporarily eased sanctions on Russian diesel sales, and on Oct. 16 Trump waived a set of new sanctions and tariffs aimed at Russia and its trading partners. Trump has also said that both sides agreed to an energy ceasefire, though attacks on energy infrastructure have continued. Reports said Washington had pressed Kyiv to halt strikes on Russian refineries.
The fighting has not paused. Russian strikes killed three people in Kyiv and two near Kharkiv overnight, according to Ukrainian officials.
Russia said it intercepted 373 Ukrainian drones overnight, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said most of 630 drones heading toward the capital area were downed, with two people injured. The war began more than four and a half years ago with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
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