WASHINGTON/SAINT PETERSBURG: As Russian President Vladimir Putin agreed to resume US-mediated peace talks with Ukraine as soon as November, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called for freezing the front as a first step toward ceasefire talks.
“Right now we have to freeze, and I think this is (the) real way to end this war. We call it ceasefire... freeze and stop,” Zelensky said in an interview with Fox News, when asked if he would accept a peace deal that freezes the front “along its current lines” after Russia’s invasion.
The comments came as US envoy Steve Witkoff met with Russian leader Vladimir Putin for talks on ending the war.
Witkoff meets Putin as Russia agrees to resume peace talks; next round in Abu Dhabi likely
US citizen released
The negotiations in a grand imperial palace in St Petersburg, the ninth time that Witkoff has met Putin in person, began with a goodwill gesture from Russia — the release of Stephen Hubbard, a retired US school teacher held in Russia whom US President Trump had asked the Kremlin to release. As Witkoff touched down in Saint Petersburg, Russia announced it would soon begin shipments of diesel to the US under a deal with President Trump.
The latest talks also came more than two years after Trump promised in his successful election campaign to end the Ukraine war within 24 hours.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said a new round of trilateral talks involving Russia, the United States and Ukraine could take place in Abu Dhabi. He told state TV channel Vesti that “we’re looking at Abu Dhabi... The agreement was that it would be sometime around the middle of November”.
Witkoff said he had brought some documents with him containing various ideas for a potential peace deal for Putin to review, and that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, also wanted to convey some ideas to Putin. Kushner later joined the meeting remotely by phone.
Zelensky, however, said he hoped to discuss key issues on how to end the war during a trilateral meeting with Putin and Trump.
Published in Dawn, October 22nd, 2026
