Zelenskyy says a Ukraine-Russia-US meeting could still happen in September

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Tuesday that a trilateral meeting of Ukrainian, Russian and American negotiators could still take place this month if every side agrees. “If all sides agree, we also want to hold it in the autumn. If September works out, then it would be great. The earlier, the better,” he told reporters in Kyiv.

The comment came hours after Russia ended a three-day pause in strikes on the capital, a pause arranged around the weekend visit of US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the overnight barrage killed two people and injured at least ten. Later city figures put the dead at three. Fires burned in five districts. Damage was listed at high-rises, a dormitory, a school and a clinic.

What the envoys brought

Witkoff and Kushner met Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday and Zelenskyy in Kyiv on Sunday. No ceasefire was announced. Zelenskyy still described parts of their paper as usable. “As for the peace package that Kushner spoke of, and the new ideas, I can tell you that there were really some very decent, worthwhile ideas,” he said in a message to journalists.

A senior Ukrainian official told AFP the proposals were “more effective” than earlier drafts. Zelenskyy told Axios that the envoys said Moscow was ready to talk and that Washington had put options on the table for a winter de-escalation covering energy sites, electricity, grain shipments and oil and gas exports. Witkoff said on Monday the trip had produced “substantial progress” toward more trilateral talks. Moscow issued no matching detail.

Zelenskyy said Ukrainian, US and European teams would meet first to prepare. Possible hosts for a later three-way session, he said, include Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Switzerland. Grain and energy infrastructure would be on that agenda. He added that Ukraine was ready for a compromise, without saying which line would move.

The other September meeting he wants

Zelenskyy also said he plans to see President Donald Trump later in September, after 20 September, to discuss a winter air-defence package and help against ballistic missiles. That meeting is separate from any table with Russia. It is the one that decides whether Ukraine enters the heating season with more interceptors or with the same inventory it has been burning through since June.

Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday that Trump considers Ukraine’s NATO bid closed. EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said Europe should not give without getting commitments in return in any settlement. Those two sentences describe the squeeze Zelenskyy is in. Washington wants a deal before winter. Brussels wants conditionality. Moscow wants the NATO door shut and the front frozen on its terms. Kyiv wants air defence first and a table second.

Talks under fire

The three-day pause was the diplomatic product. The Tuesday raid was the military product. Russian officials called the strike a hit on military and logistics sites. Ukrainian officials called it an attack on the city the envoys had just left. Both can be true in a war that treats apartments and rail yards as the same target set.

Several earlier rounds have failed. This one has a date window, a list of possible rooms, and a US paper Zelenskyy is willing to call decent. It also has a city that was on fire the morning he said it. If September produces a table, the first item will not be NATO. It will be whether energy plants and grain ships can be left alone long enough for anyone to keep talking.