Putin agrees to resume trilateral talks on Ukraine war

Updated / Wednesday, 21 Oct 2026 11:58

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Russian leader Vladimir Putin has begun talks with US President Donald Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff on ending the Ukraine war, a day after the US official met with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky.

Russian state media reported Mr Putin's talks with Mr Witkoff began in Saint Petersburg's Konstantinovsky Palace.

The agencies ‌said Mr ⁠Putin conveyed his thanks to US President Donald Trump for his efforts to settle the conflict ‌and said Russia was interested in restoring ⁠economic ties ‌with the United States.

Mr Witkoff said that there ⁠was ‌a basis for a ceasefire and he hoped that Mr Putin ⁠would consider resuming three-way talks ⁠between Russia, the US and Ukraine, according to Interfax and TASS.

Russian media also reported that US citizen Stephen Hubbard, who was sentenced to seven years in a penal colony in 2024, has been freed.

Mr Hubbard, a retired schoolteacher, was sentenced after a court found him guilty of serving in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit against ‌Russian forces, tasked with manning a checkpoint.

He denied the charge.

US President Donald Trump posted on his Truth Social platform that Mr Hubbard had been released from prison.

The United States was not required to give anything in return, he Trump added.

Mr Witkoff travelled to Russia ⁠from Norway, where ⁠he met with Mr Zelensky and other officials.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the Oslo talks as "positive".

"It was positive, nothing unexpected, nothing surprising, and he'll [Witkoff] now, armed with those ideas, be able to go to St Petersburg and share them with the Russian side - and let's see if we can make some progress," Mr Rubio said, speaking in India.

He also said that Washington had no prior knowledge of slowing of the SpaceX satellite communications that Ukraine uses to support battlefield operations.

"The president has nothing to do with the decisions that are made by Starlink and Starshield and by Mr Musk," Mr Rubio said, speaking in Mumbai.

"That's a private company; the president doesn't run that company and can't direct that company to do anything... I'm telling you, there was no foreknowledge."

Separately, four people were killed in a wave of Russian strikes across Ukraine.

Ukraine's Prime Minister Sergiy Koretsky said two people were killed when a drone hit a 24-storey building in the capital, Kyiv, while two others were killed in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

The head of the Kharkiv regional state administration, Oleg Synegubov, said the victims were an elderly couple, aged 81 and 83. Emergency services found their bodies under the rubble after their house was destroyed.

Further strikes included one on a university building in the central city of Kremenchuk, and attacks on energy facilities in Kyiv, Volyn in the northwest, and Odesa and Mykolaiv in the south.

Mr Koretsky also said a drone attacked a merchant vessel in the Black Sea.

Power company DTEK said emergency power outages were imposed on three parts of Kyiv alongside planned power cuts elsewhere in the city.