Witkoff, Putin Meet for Talks on Ukraine in St. Petersburg

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in St. Petersburg on Oct. 21 for talks on ending the war in Ukraine.The meeting in the former seat of Tsarist imperial power comes a day after Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo, Norway.The American envoy arrived Wednesday morning at the Constantine Palace alongside Kirill Dmitriev, special representative of the president of the Russian Federation for Investment and Economic Cooperation with Foreign Countries and head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russian state news agency TASS reported.Putin asked Witkoff about his meeting with Zelenskyy in Norway the previous day, and thanked the envoy and U.S. President Donald Trump for their attempts to resolve the conflict.“I know that President Trump is paying special attention to this, primarily for humanitarian reasons,” Putin said, according to TASS.He also expressed gratitude toward U.S. First Lady Melania Trump for her “contribution to resolving humanitarian issues.”The release of Stephen Hubbard, a retired teacher from Michigan who had been imprisoned in Russia since 2024 after being convicted of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine, was also confirmed.Witkoff urged Putin to consider resuming American-mediated, trilateral peace talks with Ukraine “in which we could discuss the next steps toward achieving a settlement.”“Even if we don’t have the opportunity to reach a final answer or resolution on this issue today, I believe it would be good to discuss it so that you could consider such a proposal. I believe that all of us and the world are ready for this,” he added.Witkoff said that he had brought documents outlining approaches for achieving a settlement in Ukraine, and he asked Putin to review them.He also described his meeting with Zelenskyy in Oslo as “productive” and said that progress had been made.Along with the Ukraine war, other topics discussed in the meeting included the Iran war, the recent Russo-American diesel deal, future bilateral relations between Washington and Moscow, and a potential three-way meeting between Trump, Putin, and Chinese leader Xi Jinping.The meeting, which TASS reported lasted more than three hours, was attended in person by Witkoff, Putin, and Demitriev. Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has been present at previous meetings with Putin and Zelenskyy, joined remotely due to being too ill to travel.After the meeting, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov said that Putin had confirmed to Witkoff that he would be prepared to resume trilateral talks with Kyiv and Washington in November on the topic of “building a security system for Russia and Ukraine.”As the St. Petersburg meeting was taking place, Zelenskyy said he hoped that the talks would be as “productive” as his meeting with the U.S. special envoy the previous day.“This is very important that Putin will support the peace, maybe first steps of this like … food security ceasefire, ceasefire on the sea, or energy ceasefire, which is very important, which was raised by President Trump, and I think it was a strong idea from the president. I supported it immediately,” he told Fox News’ “Fox and Friends.”The Ukrainian president also said he would accept freezing the war along its current battle lines as part of a ceasefire deal.“Right now we have to freeze, and I think this is a real way to end this war,” he said, describing it as the “minimum” Kyiv needs from Moscow right now.Zelenskyy said that after such an agreement was reached, he would approach Trump and European allies to ask for security guarantees.“This is the most important—not to be afraid that occupation will come back, aggression will come back, killings will come back,” he said.