Zelensky Says Three-Way Talks Will Happen in November
President Zelensky says a trilateral meeting with Washington and Moscow will take place in November to restart stalled peace talks, speaking in a Sunday interview. Ukraine will not discuss limits on its armed forces or enforced postwar neutrality there, he says. He renewed his call for a direct meeting with President Putin.
Neither Washington nor Moscow has confirmed the meeting, so it rests on the president’s word rather than on any announcement by the other two parties. His division of the agenda is the substantive part: territory belongs at leadership level, everything else to technical groups, which is why he keeps pressing for Mr Putin in the room on the grounds that nobody else in Russia can settle it. Two American levers moved in his favour over the weekend. Warnings of incoming ballistic strikes, which feed directly into air defence, have been fully restored, and the Starshield satellite service throttled earlier this month is working again since Saturday, after he met the American special envoy in Oslo. Washington wants Ukraine to stop striking Russian refineries because it lifts energy prices; he will stop if Moscow spares the power grid, or if he may use Starshield over Russia to find launch sites, or if Patriots arrive. He counted about 1,600 guided bombs and almost 2,300 strike drones against Ukraine in a week. Bulgaria’s presidential election, meanwhile, went to a run-off on 1 November between a pro-Western reformist and the incumbent, who opposes military aid to Ukraine.