ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Oct 21 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin has agreed to resume US-mediated peace talks with Ukraine as soon as next month, the Kremlin said on Wednesday, after Putin met US envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington’s latest push to stop Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War Two.
The negotiations in a grand imperial palace in St Petersburg, the ninth time that Witkoff has met Putin in person, began with a goodwill gesture from Russia – the release of Stephen Hubbard, a retired US school teacher held in Russia whom US President Trump had asked the Kremlin chief to release.
Wednesday’s encounter unfolded amid concerns in Kyiv and among its allies that the United States is backing away from Ukraine, at times holding back real-time intelligence on Russian attacks and hobbling Ukraine’s military communications.
The latest talks also came more than two years since Trump promised in his successful election campaign to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours.
The Kremlin said the new 3-way peace talks, which would be at a technical level, could take place in Abu Dhabi and would be focused on how to guarantee the security of Ukraine and Russia once the war ended. They could begin sometime on or after November 10, it said. The last US-mediated peace talks took place in February before the United States and Israel launched a war against Iran.
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The Kremlin was less upbeat, however, about the outcome of talks Witkoff had held a day earlier in Oslo with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the leaders of Finland and Norway, and European and NATO representatives. Witkoff told Putin the talks had been characterised by “some degree of momentum” and a US official said Ukraine had brought new ideas and proposals.
“These nuances, so to speak, do not entirely satisfy us,” Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the St Petersburg meeting – which lasted nearly three hours.
POSSIBLE MEETING BETWEEN TRUMP, PUTIN AND XI
Ukraine and Russia remain far apart when it comes to the terms of any possible peace deal, though Trump has recently intensified pressure on Ukraine to strike some kind of a deal. He said on Tuesday it was time for Ukraine to end the war or face “a very bad thing.”
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Putin also used Wednesday’s talks to offer to help Trump deal with Iran, saying Russia had a decades-long relationship with Tehran which it has repeatedly offered to leverage to address US concerns about Iran’s nuclear programme. Putin told Witkoff it was possible and necessary to get a deal with Tehran, the Kremlin said.
Russia could also supply vast quantities of fertiliser to the United States to help US farmers, the Russian president told Witkoff.
A potential meeting in China next month with Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping was also discussed. The Kremlin said Beijing was already preparing what it said would be the first meeting of its kind in history.
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