The Kremlin says Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed in principle to resume three-way negotiations with the United States and Ukraine on ending the war in Ukraine, after a three-hour meeting in St. Petersburg with US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday, October 21, 2026. The news, trending per news coverage across major international outlets, marks the first real movement toward renewed Russia-US-Ukraine talks since February — though both sides framed the commitment cautiously.
"No such talks have taken place since February," Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said after the meeting, adding that the negotiations should focus on security guarantees for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy quickly endorsed the idea, saying he had been told Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of negotiating teams and that it should happen as soon as possible, preferably by early November.
The three-hour meeting at the Constantine Palace
Witkoff flew into St. Petersburg on Wednesday morning, a day after meeting Zelenskyy in Oslo, and sat down with Putin at the Constantine Palace — the Kremlin chief's grand imperial residence in his home city — for what Russian news agencies described as roughly three hours of talks. Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's special investment envoy and his main point man for potential economic deals with Washington, was also present, and Jared Kushner joined on a virtual call, according to the reporting.
The meeting followed directly on Witkoff's trip to St. Petersburg for Ukraine peace talks, which the US had billed as the next step after the envoy's "productive" Oslo session with Zelenskyy. According to Interfax and TASS, Witkoff told the Russian side that there was a basis for a ceasefire and that he hoped Putin would consider resuming three-way talks between Russia, the US and Ukraine.
Russian agencies reported that Putin conveyed his thanks to US President Donald Trump for his efforts to settle the conflict and said Russia was interested in restoring economic ties with the United States. Russian state TV also said Putin proposed meeting Trump in China — a nod to the Kremlin's earlier suggestion that Putin, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping could hold three-way talks during an APEC summit in China next month.
Zelenskyy: make it early November
Zelenskyy, speaking to journalists over WhatsApp as he returned to Kyiv from Norway, gave the Ukrainian response within hours. "We have received feedback that...Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of our (negotiating) teams," he said, endorsing the American proposal and saying Kyiv wants the talks held as soon as possible — "I think no later than early November."
The Ukrainian president said Kyiv supports "any proposals for a ceasefire, an end to the war, an energy ceasefire as well as humanitarian initiatives." In a separate interview with Fox News, he called his Oslo talks with Witkoff productive, thanked the United States for restoring intelligence sharing, and said he hoped restrictions on Starlink and Starshield satellite services for Ukraine's military would be lifted soon.
Zelenskyy has been pushing for leader-level engagement for weeks, including an earlier proposal for a trilateral meeting with Putin and Trump. But the Kremlin has repeatedly cautioned that any Putin-Zelenskyy meeting would need to be "painstakingly prepared" in advance, with much of the legwork for an overall agreement already in place — a reminder that the November target, for now, is a negotiators-level session, not a leaders' summit.
Why this meeting happened now
The diplomacy comes after a turbulent stretch. Trump has grown visibly frustrated with Zelenskyy, repeatedly rebuking him and even suggesting he needs to be replaced. On the eve of the St. Petersburg meeting, Trump told reporters: "He's going to have to want to make a deal, because I don't think his people are going to stand for it any longer."
A recent Trump-Putin phone call produced an agreement on Russian diesel supplies — which Trump said could lower prices but which alarmed Kyiv and its European allies, who feared the US was cutting side deals with Moscow. The Oslo meeting on Tuesday was partly about repairing that anxiety: a US official said Ukraine brought "new ideas and proposals" and that the talks made "meaningful progress" toward a coordinated approach to engaging with Russia, covering security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war economic plan and a broader European security architecture. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, speaking in Mumbai, called the Oslo session "positive" and said Witkoff would carry those ideas to St. Petersburg "and let's see if we can make some progress."
The release of American detainee Stephen Hubbard at the very start of the Witkoff-Putin talks — announced by Putin as the session opened — was also read as a goodwill gesture by the Kremlin.
What the talks would actually cover
The substance, such as it is, comes from the two sides' readouts. Ushakov said the negotiations should focus on security guarantees for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends — notably insisting on guarantees for both sides, a formulation Moscow has long used to embed its own demands. The US framing, from the Oslo session, covered security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war economic plan and a broader European security architecture, with Witkoff aiming to "create a pathway toward direct trilateral and broader multilateral negotiations."
Zelenskyy has endorsed a freeze in the fighting, an energy ceasefire and humanitarian initiatives as immediate steps, and said it would be better if European countries could also be included in the negotiating format.
Reasons for caution
The most important word in the Kremlin's statement may be "in principle." Putin has shown few signs of compromising on his central war aims — which include full Russian control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine and no NATO membership for Kyiv — and every round of US-brokered diplomacy this year has produced encouraging readouts followed by renewed fighting. The February-to-October gap, with no three-way talks at all, shows how quickly momentum can stall.
The Kremlin's own framing adds caveats: talks would begin "as soon as next month," the agenda is still being defined, and any leaders' meeting needs extensive preparation. On the Ukrainian side, the endorsement came with pressure — Zelenskyy's "no later than early November" is both an acceptance and a deadline.
What happens next
US officials will now try to lock in the negotiator-level meeting for early November, with the agenda taking shape around ceasefire terms and security guarantees. The immediate tests are practical: whether both sides name negotiating teams, whether intelligence sharing and battlefield conditions change on the ground, and whether the November timeline survives contact with the two capitals' very different definitions of what a settlement looks like.
If the talks materialize, they would be the first three-way US-Russia-Ukraine negotiations in eight months — and the first real test of whether Trump's direct diplomacy with Putin can produce a channel Kyiv actually trusts. If they don't, the Witkoff mission will join a long line of announced breakthroughs that faded before the chairs were arranged.
The diplomatic track has already produced one release, with Russia freeing American prisoner Stephen Hubbard after an appeal from Trump.
Sources: Reuters; Associated Press; Fox News; Interfax; TASS; Russian state television (via Reuters); The Sun (Reuters-sourced).