Zelenskyy says US has proposed a three-way summit with Putin, possibly in December

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United States has proposed a summit bringing together the leaders of the US, Russia and Ukraine, and that it could take place as early as December.

“The U.S. is pushing for a meeting with Putin and has proposed a trilateral summit,” Zelenskyy said over the weekend. The meeting, he said, could be held in a Gulf country, with Washington repeatedly mentioning the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, or in Europe, or in the United States during the G20 summit in December.

He was careful not to oversell it. “There has been no definite confirmation yet from either Russia or the United States,” he said.

Zelenskyy has offered to meet Vladimir Putin many times. Moscow has in effect turned those offers down by insisting that any meeting be held in Russia. He said he was ready for “any format” of talks. “What matters is peace,” he said.

He said the Americans had also signalled that a separate meeting with Ukraine could happen “next week”, and that Kyiv expected it to be held in Ukraine or Europe. “If they want to meet in America, let them invite us,” he said. He also urged European governments to pursue their own negotiating track with Russia.

The proposal comes at a low point in relations between Kyiv and Washington. President Donald Trump on Friday waived key penalties under a new Russia sanctions law, including extra tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian oil such as India and China. Zelenskyy said the move “certainly does not stop the war” and called on Washington to press Putin rather than Kyiv.

Putin, for his part, ruled out discussing a security zone along Russia’s border regions in any peace talks.

For India, a December summit on American soil would coincide with the G20 meeting that Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to attend.