President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Wednesday that Ukraine supports a US proposal for three-way talks with Russia and the United States at the level of negotiators, to be held as soon as possible and preferably no later than early November — Kyiv's public answer to the Kremlin's statement, hours earlier, that President Vladimir Putin is willing in principle to resume the same format next month. Zelenskiy, speaking to journalists on WhatsApp as he returned to Kyiv from Norway, said he had spoken to US officials after presidential envoy Steve Witkoff's talks in St Petersburg with Putin. With statements from both capitals now on record, a trilateral negotiating format that has not met since February has a level — negotiating teams, not leaders — and a window: November, early November if Kyiv's preference holds.
What exactly did Zelenskiy say?
That Ukraine backs the American proposal and has heard the same signal from Moscow. "We have received feedback that... Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of our (negotiating) teams," Zelenskiy said. "The American side has proposed holding it as soon as possible and we support that... The Ukrainian side has been in contact with its American partners. They will do everything to ensure that the meeting takes place as early as possible, in November. I think no later than early November." On the substance the talks would address, he restated Kyiv's opening position rather than adding new terms: Ukraine supports "any proposals for a ceasefire, an end to the war, an energy ceasefire as well as humanitarian initiatives." The energy ceasefire is a narrower, previously floated measure — a mutual halt to strikes on energy infrastructure — that sits inside the broader ceasefire Kyiv has demanded, and which Zelenskiy had framed earlier on Wednesday, in a Fox News interview, as part of a sequence that starts with freezing the fighting along the current front line.
How does Kyiv's statement complete Wednesday's picture?
It supplies the second half of an exchange that ran through St Petersburg. Witkoff met Putin a day after holding talks with Zelenskiy in Norway, amid concerns in Kyiv and among its allies that the United States was backing away from Ukraine. After the almost three-hour meeting, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said Putin was willing in principle to resume trilateral talks next month, and that the negotiations should focus on security guarantees — in Ushakov's words, on building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends. CNN's account of the same briefing put Moscow's readiness at after November 10, at Witkoff's request. Zelenskiy's Wednesday-evening remarks, delivered after he had spoken to US officials about the St Petersburg outcome, align Kyiv with the same format and a slightly earlier window. What the two statements share is agreement on process: a trilateral table, at negotiator level, in November. What they do not share is any visible narrowing of terms — Ushakov said the European and Kyiv approaches Witkoff brought from Oslo did not contain much that was useful, and CNN reported no indication that Russia has moved from its previous demands that Ukraine cede the entire Donbas, sharply reduce its military and renounce NATO membership.
What remains undecided?
The venue, the delegations and the agenda's order of business. Neither statement named a place or a date, and the two sides describe the subject differently: Moscow wants the headline to be the post-conflict security system, while Kyiv's stated first step is a freeze of the fighting, after which it would ask the US president and European governments for security guarantees. Zelenskiy has also said it would be better if European countries were included in the format, a point Wednesday's US proposal — three-way, at negotiator level — does not address. The meeting would be the first of its kind since February, and it follows a week in which the same diplomacy was shadowed by fighting: Russian strikes on Ukrainian energy facilities continued even as the Oslo and St Petersburg meetings took place. Whether the November window produces a session, and whether that session takes up a ceasefire before a security framework or the other way round, is what the coming days of US shuttle contacts will decide.
This report is drawn from Reuters' October 21 report of Zelenskiy's WhatsApp briefing, opened and read in full via its verbatim carrier, and from this site's earlier Wednesday reporting of the Kremlin's post-meeting statement and Zelenskiy's Fox News interview, both drawn from Reuters' and CNN's October 21 reports opened in full. The talks are published as the two governments stated them — a format and a November window agreed in principle, with neither side's terms reported as changed.
