Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed “in principle” to resume three-way talks with Ukraine and the United States, after meeting US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Saint Petersburg on Wednesday.
The meeting ran for about three hours and was the pair’s ninth in person, Al Jazeera reported. Witkoff had held talks with Ukrainian and European officials in Oslo the previous day.
Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said Russia was “in principle, ready to resume the mentioned talks” with Washington and Kyiv. The stated focus of the next round is how security for Ukraine and Russia would be guaranteed once the war ends.
Russia released an American as the talks began
The session opened with the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired American teacher held in Russia for more than four years, described by both filings as a goodwill gesture accompanying the talks. Hiru News reported the release alongside the meeting, as did Al Jazeera.
Three sources, three different dates
The two filings do not agree on when the next round happens, and neither does the third party.
| Source | When the talks happen |
|---|---|
| Hiru News | On or after 10 November |
| Al Jazeera, citing Ushakov | Mid-November |
| Zelenskyy, via Al Jazeera | No later than early November |
That is a spread of several weeks on a date all three parties are nominally agreeing to, and the gap runs in a consistent direction: the Ukrainian president wants the meeting sooner than the Kremlin’s adviser is offering.
The venue carries the same problem in smaller form. Hiru reports the talks as scheduled to be held in Abu Dhabi. Al Jazeera is more guarded, attributing the venue to Russian state television and saying only that they “may be held” there. A reader of the first filing learns of a fixed location; a reader of the second learns of a possibility reported by one of the participating governments’ own broadcasters.
What each filing carries alone
Ushakov said Putin had been briefed on new European and Kyiv proposals but that there “wasn’t really much substance in them” — a caveat sitting directly against the agreement itself.
Hiru adds, attributing to foreign media, that Russia has so far shown no flexibility on its principal war aims: full control of the Donetsk region in eastern Ukraine, and no NATO membership for Ukraine. It also reports strain between Washington and Kyiv, with intelligence sharing and Starlink satellite communications to Ukraine said to have been restricted. Al Jazeera’s filing carries neither claim, and this desk could not confirm them independently.
Al Jazeera alone carries Zelenskyy’s own words: “We have received feedback that… Russia supports a trilateral meeting at the level of our [negotiating] teams.”
Not reported
Neither filing says what the updated US proposal contains, whether a ceasefire is on the table ahead of the talks, or who would represent each side. Agreement “in principle” to meet is not agreement on terms, and nothing in either report indicates movement on the positions Hiru describes as unchanged.
