October 20 – 21, 2026 · Oslo and St Petersburg Theater
October 20 – 21, 2026
On October 20, 2026, Steve Witkoff met Zelenskyy in Oslo alongside Norway's prime minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Finland's president Alexander Stubb, with Jared Kushner joining remotely; a US official said the talks covered 'key elements of a comprehensive peace framework.' The next day Witkoff spent more than three hours with Putin at the Konstantin Palace outside St Petersburg, his ninth in-person meeting with the Russian leader. Ushakov said Moscow was 'in principle' ready to resume trilateral talks with Ukraine and the United States, possibly in Abu Dhabi in mid-November; Zelenskyy wanted them no later than early November. The diplomacy ran alongside the worst strain in US–Ukrainian relations of the war. Trump had waived new sanctions to secure a deal to buy Russian diesel, which Zelenskyy called a 'reward' for Putin, and had said it was 'time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine,' while Zelenskyy accused the Pentagon of holding up interceptor missiles European countries had already paid for. Russia freed the American Stephen Hubbard as Witkoff landed. Russian strikes killed two people in a Kyiv high-rise the same day.
Commanders