Moscow Pushes for a Putin-Trump-Xi Summit as Trump Says a Ukraine Settlement Is "Closer Than Ever"

"Moscow is aiming for the trilateral meeting of the leaders of Russia, China and the United States to take place," Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko said, Kommersant reported in Russian. Rudenko is responsible for Asia-Pacific affairs at the Russian foreign ministry, so his making this statement indicates that Moscow is pursuing the Ukraine talks through its relationship with China.

Trump has encouraged the idea. "We are approaching a settlement of the war. Maybe this time we will manage it. We are closer than ever before," he said, according to the Russian independent Telegram channel Ostorozhno Novosti. Russian state agency TASS reported Trump as saying the conflict is nearing its end. Russian President Vladimir Putin has proposed meeting Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit in Shenzhen on Nov. 18-19. Trump has suggested the meeting could take place without Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and no agenda has been agreed.

Kyiv opposes this format. Ukraine's foreign ministry said that a meeting of Ukraine, the United States and Russia could help end the war faster, but that a Russia-China-U.S. meeting would only encourage Putin to keep fighting. The Ukrainian state agency Ukrinform highlighted comments from the president of the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank, who argued that no negotiated peace is possible while Putin holds power because his rule depends on the war. Each side is promoting the version that serves its bargaining position. Moscow wants a great-power settlement in which Beijing is included and Kyiv is not. Kyiv wants a format in which it, not China, negotiates directly with Russia.