The United States is working to arrange a new round of talks in a bid to end the four-and-a-half-year Russia-Ukraine war. Kyiv and Moscow both confirmed the plan to relaunch trilateral talks on Friday. The move follows negotiations that started earlier this year before the US efforts to broker an end to hostilities petered out amid Washington’s war on Iran.
The United Arab Emirates is mooted as the host of the new talks. President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Russia and Ukraine earlier this month in a bid to jump-start the bid to secure a ceasefire. The US stance has previously been criticised for favouring Russia’s narrative, with Moscow insisting that Ukraine cede territory that Russia has illegally occupied, demilitarise and drop ambitions to join NATO.
Russia’s presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev reportedly met with Witkoff and Kushner in the US on September 24. Peskov said those talks were about potential economic cooperation. Zelenskyy said that Trump told him that Ukraine will be granted permission to produce advanced Patriot air defence missiles.
Kyiv desperately needs additional air defences to counter Russia’s increasing drone and missile attacks, but Trump has delayed approval. Should a licence be issued, it would be more than a year before Kyiv could put any new Patriot systems into service, leaving Zelenskyy, in the US to attend the United Nations General Assembly, to continue his pleas for additional support from allies. Both Moscow and Kyiv continue to launch nightly barrages against one another.
Overnight attacks struck a 16-floor building in Kyiv’s central Pechersk district, killing a 14-year-old boy and injuring at least seven other people. In the southern Odesa region, Governor Oleh Kiper said one person was killed and another injured in a series of “massive” Russian strikes on a residential area and logistics premises of a postal operator. Russia said its air defence units destroyed about 50 drones over the Rostov region overnight and a drone attack damaged the Novoshakhtinsk oil refinery, forcing it to suspend operations.
Ukraine recently struck two other major Russian oil refineries in Moscow and Yaroslavl. Zelenskyy asserted that refineries in Bashkortostan and the Samara region had also been hit in the past 24-hours. The Ukrainian leader also reported unspecified strikes in the Black Sea.
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