KYIV / WASHINGTON – September 25, 2026 – The United States is trying to restart three-way talks with Russia and Ukraine, possibly in the United Arab Emirates, on the same day a Russian drone killed a 14-year-old boy in a Kyiv apartment block.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Washington had proposed a technical meeting in a trilateral format and named the Emirates as a possible site. He said Kyiv is waiting for a date. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a meeting could come soon but that Moscow had no details to add. Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev met U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the United States on Thursday. Peskov described those sessions as talks about economic cooperation.
The offer lands after a week in which Zelenskyy told the UN he was ready for an energy ceasefire and Moscow said it would not pause the war. Putin has said proposals remain on the table and that Russia is prepared to talk after last week’s parliamentary vote, while also saying Ukraine should “feel” retaliatory strikes after drones hit the Moscow area.
Overnight into Friday, Russia launched 295 weapons at Ukraine, according to the air force, which said it knocked down 267. In Kyiv’s Pechersk district a drone hit a 16-storey building. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least seven people were killed in the capital, including the boy, and 46 were wounded, 15 of them in hospital. In Odesa region, Governor Oleh Kiper said one person died and another was hurt in strikes on a residential area and a postal logistics site.
Zelenskyy said Russia will only escalate as winter comes unless the pressure rises. He wrote that U.S. sanctions have to be enforced and European sanctions tightened “for diplomacy to work.” He also said President Donald Trump told him Ukraine would be allowed to produce advanced Patriot missiles — a line that would take more than a year to turn into batteries on the ground.
The European Union, separately, agreed to release about $7.5 billion from the European Peace Facility to repay members that have sent weapons. EU diplomat Kaja Kallas said Moscow’s hybrid attacks were meant to scare Europe off. “Europe is doing the opposite.”
ArcelorMittal has shut Ukraine’s largest steel plant after four strikes in five weeks. Zelenskyy is also talking to India, Turkey, Egypt and others about keeping Black Sea shipping open after attacks on cargo ships.
The talks track and the funeral track are running on the same day. Washington wants a table in the Gulf. Kyiv buried another child from a building in the centre of the capital.
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