US pushes for Ukraine-Russia talks by end of October, Zelenskyy says

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the United States is seeking to bring Ukraine and Russia back into trilateral negotiations by the end of October, starting with officials rather than the countries’ leaders. Speaking to journalists on Sunday during a joint press conference in Kyiv with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Zelenskyy said Ukraine was ready to take part.

“USA is currently in contact with Ukraine and Russia, and proposes that one in some way has a meeting at technical level in a three-party cooperation by the end of October,” Zelenskyy said.

The proposed meeting would bring together negotiators and other officials. It would not itself establish a ceasefire or a peace agreement.

Ukraine is prepared to hold the talks in the United Arab Emirates or another country put forward by the United States, Zelenskyy said. He added that the sides would return in about 10 days with their views and results.

Russia’s participation remains uncertain. The Kremlin said Friday that a trilateral meeting could happen soon, without giving a date.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said President Vladimir Putin and President Donald Trump had discussed the possibility in a call earlier this month. The Kremlin did not rule out a meeting in “the foreseeable future”, he said.

The proposed October meeting would follow three earlier rounds of trilateral talks this year. Two were held in Abu Dhabi, while the most recent took place in Geneva on February 26, 2026.

Those negotiations effectively stalled after the Geneva meeting. A further round scheduled for early March 2026 was postponed because of a US-Israeli operation against Iran.

In early September, US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in Moscow on September 5, then met Zelenskyy in Kyiv on September 6.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on September 9 that the envoys’ talks in Kyiv and Moscow had been substantive.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s Presidential Office, told reporters on September 12 that preparations were under way for a trilateral format. “We are preparing. For October,” he said at the Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting in Kyiv, while declining to comment on a venue.

Zelenskyy was in the United States for the UN General Assembly and met Trump on Tuesday. He said he had yet to receive feedback from the White House about Trump’s talks with Xi.

The US proposal is an effort to restart a diplomatic process that has so far brought no tangible progress towards peace. Its immediate test is whether Moscow will agree to send representatives and whether the parties can turn a technical meeting into further negotiations.