US envoy Witkoff arrives in St Petersburg for talks with Putin on Ukraine

US special envoy Steve Witkoff arrived in Saint Petersburg on the morning of 21 October 2026 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about Ukraine, according to The Guardian. A special envoy is a diplomat sent on a specific assignment rather than to a standing post, and Witkoff has been carrying out Washington's contacts on the war in Ukraine.

At Pulkovo Airport he was met by Kirill Dmitriev, a Kremlin adviser on international economic cooperation. The visit follows a day of meetings on 20 October, when Witkoff held discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and with the leaders of Norway and Finland.

Witkoff's trip to Russia comes a day after those meetings. Norway and Finland are both neighbours of Russia, and their leaders' inclusion in the same round of talks placed Europe's northern border states alongside Kyiv in the diplomatic schedule.

Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov told Interfax that he did not know whether any agreement would be reached during the Witkoff-Putin talks on 21 October.