Russia has agreed to resume three-way negotiations next month with the US and Ukraine aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, a Kremlin official said on Thursday.
Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed "in principle" to restart the talks after 10 November, Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters following a meeting in St. Petersburg between the Russian leader and US envoy Steve Witkoff.
The talks, which would be the first since February , will focus on "building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends", Ushakov said.
Witkoff's talks with Putin about Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine took place as US President Donald Trump presses Ukraine to make a deal that stops the fighting .
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he supported the push from the US to restart talks swiftly.
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"The agenda is clear: to end the war, bring peace closer, and, as I understand it, prepare everything for a meeting at the leaders' level," Zelenskyy said in an audio message issued on Thursday.
"[Russia] has said many times already that it is ready to meet in one format or another. Then something changed. Things were cancelled. We'll see what happens this time."
Shortly after his message, a missile alert sounded over Kyiv, and loud explosions were heard in the capital.
Representatives of the three countries held three rounds of negotiations early this year, meeting twice in Abu Dhabi in January and February, followed by further talks in Geneva in February.
However, little progress was reported beyond exchanges of prisoners of war as Russia and Ukraine stuck to their longstanding basic demands.
