Putin is Ready to Hold Talks With The U.S. and Ukraine to Seek an End to the War

Russian President Vladimir Putin is willing to resume trilateral talks with the U.S. and Ukraine to seek an end to the war.

Foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov said on Wednesday that Putin has agreed to renewed talks "in principle" following a meeting with President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow.

The talks would focus on "building a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the conflict ends," Ushakov claimed.

Witkoff met with Putin for about three hours and followed an encounter with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other European leaders in Norway on Tuesday. Finnish President Alexander Stubb said after the meeting that he had seen "genuine progress."

Zelenskyy, on his end, said freezing the conflict would be the first step to end the conflict. "Right now, we have to freeze, and I think this is (the) real way to end this war," he told Fox News.

The possibility of renewed talks comes as relations between Washington and Kyiv sour, with Zelenskyy saying recently that Ukraine is being pushed to "capitulate."

"I am not saying that this is the goal our partners are pursuing," he added, saying he did not want to believe American officials thought the war could end sooner at Ukraine's expense. "But that's how it looks."

He also said this week that the Trump administration is holding up key missiles that Europe has already paid for as relations between the two governments continue to sour.

Speaking with U.S. senators on Monday, Zelenskyy said the Pentagon is "delaying the delivery of" Patriot missiles, which Kyiv uses to intercept Russian projectiles.

"The missiles are ready and they could already be in Ukraine," Zelenskyy added, claiming that "unfortunately, there is still no approval." A report from last week claimed that Ukraine had already ran out of Patriots.

Serhiy Derkach, Ukraine's first deputy minister for recovery, infrastructure and transport, also said this week that Russia is intensifying attacks on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure as new restrictions on the U.S.-owned Starlink satellite network weaken Kyiv's military capabilities.

"With U.S. limiting the use of Starlinks on the battlefield, Russia feels that this is their moment to try and inflict even more pain and suffering on Ukraine's civilian infrastructure," Derkach said.

According to Derkach, Russian forces have increased strikes targeting bridges in Kyiv, threatening transportation links serving nearly 2 million people living on the eastern bank of the Dnipro River.