US accepts technical-level talks with Russia and Ukraine, official says

Zelenskiy backs the proposal for talks at negotiator level. The Kremlin had floated Abu Dhabi as a venue days earlier.

A US official says the United States has accepted a proposal for a technical-level meeting with Russia and Ukraine. CBS reports that Russia and Ukraine have agreed to hold trilateral talks at that level, rather than a leaders' summit.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he supports the US proposal for trilateral talks at the level of negotiators. He wants them held as soon as possible.

The Kremlin had floated Abu Dhabi as a possible venue for talks involving Russia, the United States and Ukraine days before this announcement. Steve Witkoff was due to meet President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday, with Jared Kushner joining him, and Zelenskiy called an earlier round of talks with Witkoff very productive. A German government spokesperson has said contacts with Washington suggest American interest in a negotiation process, and Finland's president said after meeting Zelenskiy and Witkoff that they saw progress toward a session in St Petersburg.

A technical-level meeting would be a scheduling step that past process signals never produced, including Witkoff's meeting with Putin and Trump's refusal to sign a document. It says nothing about whether Russia's precondition on Donbas has moved. Witkoff and Kushner have previously told Kyiv directly that Putin is unwilling to negotiate and that Moscow's precondition remains securing the rest of Donbas, a demand that has survived earlier rounds of diesel and asset-unfreezing inducements.

Earlier ceasefire and meeting claims have collapsed once battlefield activity continued. Confirmation that all three sides actually sit down would carry more weight than the announcement.