Russia is “ready in principle” to resume talks with the US and Ukraine on ending the conflict, Vladimir Putin’s top aide has said.
Yuri Ushakov was speaking after Putin met US President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff in the Russian city of St Petersburg.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and his European allies have been pressing Moscow for an immediate resumption of the talks suspended in February, and Ushakov said a new round could be held next month.
Russia has for months refused talks as it believes it is winning on the battlefield with Ukraine facing an acute shortage of interceptors against deadly Russian missile attacks.
Witkoff went to St Petersburg after meeting Zelensky as well as the leaders of Norway and Finland in the Norwegian capital, Oslo, on Monday.
It is not clear what specific proposals Witkoff brought to Putin, but Zelensky said after talks in Oslo that “strong” security guarantees for Ukraine and energy ceasefire proposals had been discussed.
Ushakov said their ideas were not very “useful”.
Top officials from Russia, Ukraine and the US have held several rounds of talks aimed at ending the war that began in February 2022 when Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Russia blamed last month’s “massive” Ukrainian strikes during its general elections for their disruption.
Speaking to reporters after Wednesday’s talks in St Petersburg, Ushakov suggested that a new round could be held around 10 November in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates.
He stressed that the talks must focus on “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the end of the conflict.”
A US official later told the BBC that Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, another key negotiator, had proposed at Tuesday’s talks in the Norwegian capital “a trilateral meeting at the technical level between the US, Russia, and Ukraine”.
“This was accepted by the Ukrainians in Oslo yesterday and by the Russians in St Petersburg today,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Ushakov also told reporters that President Putin reiterated to Witkoff that Russian troops were advancing everywhere across the vast front line and had a “strategic initiative”.
Ukraine and its European allies are disputing Putin’s claim, pointing to a virtual stalemate on the front.
