Putin agrees in principle to three-way talks as Zelenskyy backs freezing the front line

Vladimir Putin has agreed in principle to restart three-way negotiations with the United States and Ukraine on ending the war, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, after the Russian president spent three hours with Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in St Petersburg.

Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy aide, said the talks could take place in mid-November. Putin later told Russian state television that Abu Dhabi was a possible venue. The last round of US-mediated talks was held in February, before the United States and Israel went to war with Iran.

In Kyiv, Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the move but said it could not wait that long. Speaking to journalists on his way back from Norway, he said Ukraine wanted the talks held no later than early November, and that Russia had agreed to a meeting of the three negotiating teams.

Freeze first, guarantees later

Hours before the Kremlin meeting, Zelenskyy went further than he has in months on what a first step could look like. Asked on the US programme Fox & Friends whether he would accept a deal that fixed the front where it now stands, he said: “Yes, right now, we have to freeze. And I think this is [a] real way to end this war.”

“We call it ceasefire or ‘stop killing’ like President Trump called it,” he said. “Freeze and stop. And, of course, this is the minimum of what we need from Russia today.” After that, he said, Ukraine would go to the US president and to European leaders to ask for security guarantees. He also had a request for Washington and Moscow: “Don’t speak about us without us, please.”

Moscow has long rejected a simple ceasefire, arguing it would let Kyiv rearm. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said Russia will not agree to a pause that lets the West “pump him full of weapons”, a reference to Zelenskyy.

A prisoner freed, offers made

The St Petersburg meeting, Witkoff’s ninth face-to-face session with Putin, opened with Russia freeing Stephen Hubbard, a retired American teacher captured in Ukraine in 2022. Putin thanked Trump and Witkoff for their efforts and, by the Kremlin’s account, offered to help Washington on Iran and to supply fertiliser to the United States. A possible meeting of Trump, Xi Jinping and Putin in China next month was also discussed. Witkoff had come from Oslo, where he met Zelenskyy and European leaders on Tuesday and later called the talks productive.

The satellite row

Relations between Kyiv and Washington remain strained. Ukraine has accused the US of slowing its forces’ access to Starshield, the military satellite communications service run by Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that both Starshield and the civilian Starlink network were “still limited”, and that Secretary of State Marco Rubio had promised to work to unblock them. Musk was reported to have ordered the cut himself; he has suggested the restriction came from Trump, which Trump has denied.

In London, Prime Minister Andy Burnham told MPs he had “concerns about any move that diminishes the military capability of Ukraine” and said the situation was “fragile and needs careful handling”.

The war goes on

The fighting did not pause for the diplomacy. Ukraine’s emergency service said two people were killed when a Russian strike hit a high-rise block in Kyiv’s Sviatoshynskyi district. Across the border, the governor of Russia’s Bryansk region said a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded two.