Jens Asbjørn Bøgen
He floated the idea of such a meeting happening as soon as October.
Russia remains willing to restart three-way peace discussions involving Ukraine and the United States, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on September 21.
Speaking to reporters during a press briefing, Peskov expressed hope that diplomatic channels would reopen soon. “As for resuming the trilateral talks, we are open to it,” Peskov said according to UKRMedia.
However, Moscow made clear that military operations will not pause while diplomats talk. Russian military forces continue to pursue their battlefield targets across the region under what official sources term a “special military operation.”
The Kremlin spokesperson stressed that any return to diplomacy must aim to fulfill Moscow’s original objectives. “We hope that we will, after all, be able to resume the trilateral talks and make another attempt to achieve our goals by peaceful means,” Peskov added.
Eyes on October
Despite the public invitation to resume three-way talks, official contacts have produced little concrete progress so far. Peskov admitted directly to reporters that negotiations remain completely stalled, Kyiv Post reported.
Even so, Moscow believes a new round of meetings could happen soon. Peskov suggested previously that a new round of talks might take place in October, noting on September 13 that the Kremlin does not rule out such a scenario.
The diplomatic push follows intense groundwork laid by Washington. Senior American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled directly to both Moscow and Kyiv in early September to revive stalled discussions between key players.
Unresolved hurdles
Those high-level visits reconnected the parties for direct talks, yet negotiators finished their meetings without reporting a major breakthrough.
Earlier attempts at US-mediated negotiations in early 2026 ended without reaching a final agreement between the sides. Deep disagreements over territorial control remain the primary hurdle blocking a lasting peace agreement.
Ukraine gaining momentum
While the situation on the ground in Ukraine is difficult to assess, as the active front is roughly 1,200 kilometers long, a new Ukrainian campaign in Donetsk known as Operation Vivaldi is drawing attention from international observers.
The operation has been ongoing since May, but the public only came to know about it last week when the commander of the operation gave an update on the progress.
Brigadier General Andrii Biletskyi told reporters the corps had been running a phased offensive in northern Donetsk Oblast that his staff had codenamed after Antonio Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons, with three further phases still to come.
The corps said in a statement that the first phase cleared 75 square kilometers of Russian troops in northern Donetsk Oblast and de-occupied another 10 square kilometers.
This weekend Biletskyi told reporters that Ukraine had now cleared 125 square kilometers.
