President Zelensky said on Wednesday night that Ukraine will support the resumption of trilateral peace talks with the United States and Russia, hours after Vladimir Putin received Donald Trump's special envoy in St Petersburg and declared the Kremlin ready to negotiate.
"We will support proposals regarding a ceasefire, ending the war, addressing the energy sector, and other sectors as well, as well as humanitarian initiatives, the return of prisoners, and the return of diplomats," Mr Zelensky told reporters in Kyiv, confirming that his government had been briefed on the Kremlin's readiness to meet.
Steve Witkoff's meeting with Mr Putin was the second leg of a hurried shuttle. On Tuesday the envoy had sat with Mr Zelensky and European allies in Oslo to collect the proposals he then carried across the Baltic. According to Russian state media, the St Petersburg talks produced a "specific framework" by which three-way negotiations could take place. Mr Witkoff called both meetings "constructive", while cautioning that "there is still important work left to do".
The Kremlin's warm words for Washington
The Kremlin was conspicuously complimentary about the American president. "We see that President Trump is quite sincere and consistent in his wish to facilitate a peaceful resolution," Dmitry Peskov, Mr Putin's spokesman, told state media, adding that the groundwork for a settlement was being laid.
European capitals will treat the choreography with caution. Only days ago Mr Trump was rowing publicly with Mr Zelensky over the pace of American support, a rupture that prompted the Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, to urge the European Union to unlock 210 billion euros of frozen Russian assets for Ukraine. Whether the new talk of frameworks outlasts the week is a question being asked in Brussels as much as in Kyiv.
Bombs fall while envoys talk
The diplomacy unfolded against the war's unrelenting rhythm. A Russian drone attack on Kyiv in the early hours of Wednesday killed at least two people and injured two more, leaving one residential district, in the words of a city official, "in ruins". Air raid sirens sounded across the capital through the night.
It is that bombardment that makes Ukraine's deepening shortage of Patriot interceptor missiles so acute. On Wednesday, the Defence Minister, Yevhen Khmara, and the Commander-in-Chief, Mykhailo Drapatyi, met a Lockheed Martin delegation in Kyiv, led by Orlando Sanchez Jr, to discuss scaling up supplies of the PAC-3 interceptors that can engage Russian ballistic missiles. The American manufacturer has backed a proposal to grant Ukraine a Patriot production licence, and the ministry said "stable arms deliveries and further cooperation" were at the top of the agenda.
The State of Play at a Glance
- Steve Witkoff met President Zelensky and European allies in Oslo on Tuesday, then President Putin in St Petersburg on Wednesday.
- Russian state media says a "specific framework" for trilateral talks was discussed; Mr Zelensky says Kyiv will support the proposals.
- Ukraine's priorities: a ceasefire, energy security, humanitarian measures, and the return of prisoners and diplomats.
- A Russian drone attack on Kyiv killed at least two people on Wednesday as Ukraine's shortage of Patriot interceptors grew critical.
- Lockheed Martin held talks with Ukraine's defence chiefs in Kyiv on scaling up PAC-3 supplies and a possible production licence.
- Denmark has guaranteed a 113 million dollar loan for the Ukrainian defence company Fire Point.
The week ahead
Denmark, meanwhile, underlined the quieter material support flowing to Kyiv, guaranteeing a 113 million dollar loan for Fire Point, the Ukrainian defence firm behind much of the country's homegrown missile programme. In a footnote from the other side of the ledger, the Russian military confirmed that one of its Su-30 fighter jets crashed in the Kaliningrad region during a training flight on Wednesday.
For the Burnham government, which has tied Britain's credibility in Europe to its support for Ukraine, the immediate task is to ensure that any three-way format does not become a corridor in which Kyiv is pressured into a frozen conflict on Moscow's terms. Talks about talks are not peace. But after a fortnight of open friction between Washington and Kyiv, the fact that an American envoy was welcomed in the Kremlin with proposals drafted in Oslo is, at the very least, movement.