Witkoff's 2-Day Ukraine Peace Push Yields Little Progress as Putin Resists 3-Way Summit
Updated
Updated · bbc.co.uk · Oct 21
Witkoff's 2-Day Ukraine Peace Push Yields Little Progress as Putin Resists 3-Way Summit
3 articles · Updated · bbc.co.uk · Oct 21
Summary
Two days of talks in Oslo and St Petersburg left no clear path to ending the war, with Steve Witkoff saying after meeting Vladimir Putin that "important work" still remains.
A proposed Trump-Putin-Zelensky leaders' summit failed to gain traction because Putin has shown little interest in meeting Zelensky, while the Kremlin offered only possible technical-level talks in Abu Dhabi next month.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin's foreign policy aide, dismissed the Oslo discussions and Kyiv-European proposals as offering little useful for resolving the conflict, underscoring Moscow's lack of urgency.
Russia appears comfortable dragging out diplomacy as Ukraine's air defenses strain and winter nears, while Trump has paused some sanctions, agreed to buy Russian diesel and publicly criticized Zelensky.
After nearly 5 years of war, attention may shift to a possible Putin-Trump-Xi encounter at next month's Apec summit in China, a format Russian commentators cast as restoring Moscow to great-power status.