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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that Kyiv has agreed to join trilateral technical-level talks with the United States and Russia, proposed by Washington to take place by the end of October, as the two sides continue negotiations in an effort to end the four-and-a-half-year war.
Zelenskyy, speaking at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, said he had spoken with American negotiators on Saturday and confirmed Ukraine's readiness to support the proposed timeline.
He said Washington had also presented the proposal to Moscow, which has yet to respond.
According to Zelenskyy, American officials are in contact with both Kyiv and Moscow about holding a meeting at the technical level in a trilateral format before November.
He said Ukraine was open to hosting the talks in the United Arab Emirates or another location proposed by the American side, but did not specify further details on timing or venue.
The UAE has previously hosted US-mediated talks related to the war. The Kremlin said last month that three-way talks could take place in October, with spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying at the time that Moscow did not rule out the possibility in the "foreseeable future."
The push for renewed negotiations comes after US-led peace efforts stalled in recent months, with Washington's attention diverted toward its conflict with Iran.
Ukraine has said Russia has intensified aerial attacks across the country during this period. Previous rounds of talks have failed to produce substantive progress, with Moscow unwilling to abandon what Kyiv and its allies have called maximalist conditions for ending the fighting.
Addressing recent attacks on Ukraine, Zelenskyy said Kyiv would continue to respond to Russian strikes, including attacks that have targeted bridges in the Ukrainian capital for four consecutive days.
He said he was taken aback not by Russia's approach to the war broadly, but by the specific targets it has chosen, citing strikes on logistics hubs including Nova Poshta and Ukrposhta. He said Ukraine had responded by striking the Russian company Wildberries, and questioned whether Moscow expected strikes on bridges to go unanswered.
Zelenskyy also said Russia has continued to target civilian infrastructure, including data centers and mobile network facilities.
Zelenskyy accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of pursuing constant escalation, saying that was Putin's underlying objective.
He said the dynamic undercuts the notion that the war could be brought to an end simply by appealing to Putin diplomatically, saying that approach "simply won't work."
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