Steve Witkoff arrived at St Petersburg’s Constantine Palace on Wednesday after talks in Oslo with Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the leaders of Finland and Norway. His meeting with Vladimir Putin lasted nearly three hours, the ninth time the US special envoy and the Russian president had met in person.
Putin told Witkoff that Moscow was “ready to resume” trilateral talks with Ukraine and the United States around November 10, according to the Kremlin. Yury Ushakov, a Kremlin aide, said Putin’s readiness “in principle” centred in particular on creating a post-war “security system” for Russia and Ukraine.
On Friday, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the talks were scheduled for the first half of November in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, with Russia, Ukraine and the United States taking part. Moscow and Kyiv have both confirmed the planned trilateral negotiations.
Zelenskyy told the Hudson Institute think tank on Friday that technical negotiations would take place in the first half of November and should begin “as soon as possible.” Witkoff said on X that he and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, had held “constructive” discussions in St Petersburg and Oslo, with work continuing at a technical level.
The planned meeting would be the first US-brokered round since negotiations stalled earlier this year. Three rounds were held on January 23–24, February 4–5 and February 17–18 in Abu Dhabi and Geneva, but made little progress. The talks have been at a standstill since the beginning of the year.
The prospective agenda points to the deeper terms of a settlement rather than an immediate halt in fighting. In a televised interview aired late on Thursday, Putin said trilateral discussions should address long-term security arrangements for a final peace agreement rather than a short truce.
Zelenskyy has said that any agreement must give Ukraine strong security guarantees and provide funding for 10 years to sustain its army. Russia, meanwhile, continues to demand that Ukraine cede large parts of its territory and agree not to join NATO.
The gap between those positions remains the central issue for the Abu Dhabi talks. The precise starting date in the first half of November has yet to be announced.
Witkoff’s visit also brought the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 73-year-old American and retired school teacher. Russian officials handed him to Witkoff at Pulkovo Airport in St Petersburg for his return to the United States, describing the transfer as a goodwill gesture.
Hubbard had been sentenced by the Moscow City Court on October 7, 2024, to six years and 10 months in a penal colony after his conviction for fighting alongside Ukrainian forces.
Elsewhere, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said Moscow and Kyiv had each exchanged 270 prisoners of war. The White House said First Lady Melania Trump had brokered a localised ceasefire in Oleshky, a southern Ukrainian city occupied by Russia since February 2022.
Trump has eased sanctions on Moscow and agreed to buy 300,000 tonnes of Russian diesel, while Moscow said on Friday that the first shipment was travelling to New York.
Ukraine’s acting prosecutor general, Anton Kovalsky, said more than 19,000 Ukrainian civilians, including 762 children, had been killed since Russia launched its full-scale war more than four years ago. The November meeting will test whether the three sides can move beyond the limited progress of the earlier rounds while confronting their competing demands over the terms of peace.
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