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Russia is prepared to resume trilateral peace negotiations with the United States and Ukraine in the second week of November, Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said on Tuesday after President Vladimir Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg.
“The president told Steve Witkoff that we are ready to restart the above-mentioned three-way talks around the tenth of November on the core subject — the creation of a security architecture for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends,” Ushakov told journalists following the meeting.
Ushakov said Witkoff expressed support for the proposal during the talks and indicated that “there is no doubt” President Donald Trump would welcome such a decision. Witkoff himself had not commented publicly on the outcome of the St Petersburg meeting as of Tuesday.
The session took place behind closed doors at the Konstantin Palace in Strelna, outside St Petersburg. Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special representative for investment and economic cooperation with foreign states, also attended; he had met Witkoff at Pulkovo airport earlier that morning and seen him off after the meeting concluded.
Abu Dhabi as likely venue
Ushakov indicated that Abu Dhabi is the preferred location for the next round of three-party talks. “We are targeting Abu Dhabi — agreed for around the tenth of November, the middle of November,” he said.
Asked by a Vesti correspondent about the prospects for ending the conflict, Ushakov offered a cautious assessment: “I don’t know how close we are, but things are moving in that direction.”
EU and Kyiv proposals dismissed
The Kremlin aide said Witkoff had raised “new approaches” from the European Union and Kyiv during the Putin meeting, but added that Moscow found them to contain “not very much that is useful from the standpoint of resolving the Ukraine crisis.” He did not elaborate on the substance of those proposals.
Kyiv had not publicly responded to the Kremlin’s offer as of Tuesday.
Earlier breakdown blamed on Kyiv
Ushakov said Moscow had originally planned to restart the trilateral format immediately after Russia’s State Duma elections in September, but that Kyiv had prevented this from happening. He cited what he described as large-scale strikes on Moscow and other Russian cities, including on polling stations, during the voting period as the reason the talks did not resume then.
Separately, Ushakov commented on the possibility of a three-way meeting between Putin, Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit, calling such an encounter a potentially historic event.