Russia accepts US proposal for trilateral meeting with Ukraine, US official says
The acceptance follows the Kremlin's suggestion of Abu Dhabi as a venue days earlier.
Published · Updated
UpdateWednesday, October 21, 2026 at 3:37 PM ET
CBS reports that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to hold trilateral talks at the technical level, rather than a leaders' summit.
UpdateWednesday, October 21, 2026 at 2:23 PM ET
Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy says he supports the US proposal for trilateral talks at the level of negotiators, and wants them held as soon as possible.
UpdateWednesday, October 21, 2026 at 12:54 PM ET
The published piece said Russia accepted a US proposal for a trilateral meeting; the later filing instead has the US accepting a technical level meeting with Russia and Ukraine.
The later filing describes the development differently: the US has accepted a technical level meeting with Russia and Ukraine.
A US official says Russia has accepted a US proposal to hold a trilateral meeting with Ukraine.
The Kremlin had floated Abu Dhabi as a possible venue for talks involving Russia, the United States and Ukraine days before this acceptance. Steve Witkoff was due to meet President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, with Jared Kushner joining him, and Zelenskiy called an earlier round of talks with Witkoff very productive. A German government spokesperson has said contacts with Washington suggest American interest in a negotiation process, and Finland's president said after meeting Zelenskiy and Witkoff that they saw progress toward a session in St Petersburg.
Moscow's acceptance of a trilateral format gives a scheduling step that past process signals never produced, including Witkoff's meeting with Putin and Trump's refusal to sign a document. It says nothing about whether Russia's precondition on Donbas has moved. Witkoff and Kushner have previously told Kyiv directly that Putin is unwilling to negotiate and that Moscow's precondition remains securing the rest of Donbas, a demand that has survived earlier rounds of diesel and asset-unfreezing inducements.
Earlier ceasefire and meeting claims have collapsed once battlefield activity continued. Confirmation that all three sides actually sit down would carry more weight than today's acceptance.
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