Moscow announces readiness for trilateral talks with Washington and Kyiv in November

Kremlin spokesman Yuri Ushakov announced that President Vladimir Putin informed U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff during their meeting in Saint Petersburg that Moscow is prepared for trilateral talks in the Russia-U.S.-Ukraine format in the second week of November, with these discussions focused on establishing a security framework for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends.

Witkoff met Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo before moving to Saint Petersburg to meet Putin. U.S. officials reported that the Oslo talks focused on drafting a "framework agreement" to end the war, noting that they hope the new proposal will pave the way toward "direct trilateral negotiations and broader multilateral talks."

Witkoff announced that Russia's decision to resume trilateral negotiations will be met with great relief by President Donald Trump. Representatives of the three nations had previously conducted three rounds of talks earlier this year: two in Abu Dhabi in January and February, and a third in Geneva in February.

On the matter of American warnings, President Trump said ahead of Witkoff's visit to Russia that he expects Zelenskyy to sign a settlement agreement, cautioning: "Zelenskyy should want to end this war. If he doesn't, the consequences will be very grave." Trump added that Russia continues to expand the territory under its control, that Europe has become exhausted by this conflict, and that Moscow also wants to end the fighting, continuing: "Ukraine has lost very large numbers of people, and so has Russia. But Russia is a huge country, while Ukraine is not."

In a notable development, American citizen Stephen Hubbard, 74, who had been detained by Russia on charges of fighting alongside Ukraine, was released immediately following the Putin-Witkoff meeting. Reports indicated that Trump directly demanded that Putin release him, while the American president defended his decision to suspend sanctions on Russia, asserting that maintaining them would have halted negotiations for Hubbard's release "entirely and definitively."

On the sidelines of these developments, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced that Putin may attend the G20 summit scheduled for Miami, Florida in December, though he clarified that he has not yet received any confirmation regarding this.