.webp)
Before the resumption of negotiations, the Kremlin had announced that Putin was “prepared, in principle,” to resume trilateral negotiations with the US and Ukraine after a meeting in St. Petersburg with US envoy Steve Witkoff. At the same time, the Kremlin indicated that the war in Ukraine was “approaching its end,” and that discussions were to continue through trilateral negotiations at the technical level; Witkoff had previously also met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Oslo, where the possibility of meetings at the leaders’ level was discussed.
In parallel, discussions between Russia and Ukraine continued to be reflected in prisoner exchanges: previously, Russia and Ukraine had conducted an exchange in which each side handed over 103 servicemen, with the repatriations mediated by the United Arab Emirates, while the Russian Ministry of Defense stated that the repatriated Russian soldiers had received medical and psychological treatment before being transferred to Russia, in Belarus.
