St Petersburg, 21 October. US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff flew to St Petersburg after the talks in Oslo, and Vladimir Putin, according to Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov, will receive him in the first half of the day; the main topic of the conversation will be the Ukrainian conflict.
At Pulkovo airport Witkoff was met by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev, after which the motorcade left the airport for the venue of the talks. The meeting, Ushakov said, is scheduled and was agreed in advance, and Dmitriev will attend it.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the Ukrainian conflict cannot be fully settled without the participation of someone from Kyiv: someone there has to take a responsible decision. Moscow's position on an energy truce, he said, has not changed: Russia needs peace, not a truce. Finnish President Alexander Stubb's repetition of the common European position on Ukraine, Peskov added, is unlikely to be a constructive contribution to a settlement.
An energy truce means the sides mutually refraining from strikes on power plants, grids and oil refineries; Moscow is signalling that it will not agree to such a partial pause without an overall peace agreement.
What it means: The document prepared in Oslo is now in Russia: Witkoff is handing it to Putin, and the Kremlin is setting the frame in advance — a full peace is needed, not a partial truce, and it is impossible without a decision by Kyiv.
Who benefits: The meeting is needed above all by Washington, which mediates between Kyiv and Moscow and wants to move the talks forward; Moscow uses it to set out its conditions directly to the Americans, and the outcome of the conversation will determine whether the process goes further.
Background: The day before, Zelensky held talks in Oslo with US envoys and European leaders, after which Norway's prime minister called them "good and productive".
List of sources used: RBC, TASS, TASS, TASS, TASS, TASS, TASS, TASS, TASS, TASS
Artificial intelligence was used in preparing this material.
