Russia is ready to resume three-way talks with Ukraine and the US, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed in an interview with Pavel Zarubin of state broadcaster VGTRK, published on 22 October. He said they should settle security for both countries after a final peace deal, not a brief pause.

Putin spoke a day after he hosted US envoy Steve Witkoff in St. Petersburg and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would accept freezing the war along the front line. In May, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov named Ukraine’s withdrawal from Donbas and Zaporizhzhia and Kherson oblasts as the only condition for peace. Any new round would start from that gap: Kyiv offers to stop where the armies stand, while Moscow’s last stated terms demanded more land.

Talks in November

Putin stated that Moscow and Washington had agreed Russia was ready to resume trilateral contacts. He added that he generally agreed with a US point that European security architecture should also be discussed.

On 21 October, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov stated that the sides had settled on mid-November, with Abu Dhabi as the likely venue.

"Historical Russia"

In a 21 October Fox News interview, asked about a freeze leaving Ukraine 75% or more of its land, Zelenskyy answered: “Yes, right now, we have to freeze.”

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Asked about the land Ukraine would give up, Putin replied that the occupied regions were not Ukraine’s but "historical Russia." He claimed their residents had voted for independence and then to join Russia, and called any talk of territorial losses inappropriate.

Putin linked Russia’s readiness to negotiate to Ukrainians being a people very close to Russians. He claimed the latest genetic studies show they are one people. Independent outlet Meduza noted it is unclear which studies he meant. Putin’s 12 July 2021 essay on the historical unity of Russians and Ukrainians made the same case, which Ukraine’s national memory institute rebutted.

He closed that answer by asserting Russia would achieve all the goals of what the Kremlin calls its special military operation. He made a similar vow on 17 December 2025.

Ukraine's defense minister raised the urgent need for Patriot interceptors with Sweden on 22 October, the Defense Ministry reported. The same day, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned of more Russian ballistic strikes and blamed US supply cuts.

Patriots are Ukraine's main defense against Russian ballistic missiles, and their deliveries keep shrinking. Figures Zelenskyy released in August showed Patriot interceptor deliveries falling from 675 in 2023 to 364 in 2025, with 264 projected for 2026. Europe holds enough PAC-2 and PAC-3 interceptors for Ukraine's minimum winter needs, Zelenskyy told journalists on 16 October, but he did not yet know how many Europe would hand over, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

Partners' stocks now, Ukraine's missiles later

Russia fired 21 ballistic missiles at Kyiv overnight on 22 October, Zelenskyy said. Defense Minister Yevhenii Khmara told his Swedish counterpart, Pål Jonson, that Ukraine must counter ballistic threats as fast as possible, in particular with Patriot interceptors.

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The ministry's readout says Ukraine has Patriot missiles under contract. It also says Kyiv asks partners to transfer interceptors from their stocks in exchange for future deliveries allocated to Ukraine.

Khmara made the same request at the Ukraine Defense Contact Group meeting on 8 September. He said then that Ukraine was contracting about 1,000 Patriot missiles with partners' help and an EU loan, but they would arrive only in the coming years, LB reported. He asked allies for missiles from their stocks now, in exchange for future upgraded missiles under Ukraine's contracts.

"Only when the American side approves it"

Zelenskyy spoke to journalists before meeting Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo, Ukrinform reported. He said the Americans had reduced supplies and Russia would step up ballistic attacks.

"Europeans can provide the missiles only when the American side approves it," Zelenskyy said.

He said the US had sent most of its interceptors to the Middle East.

On 19 October, Zelenskyy told US senators that US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was not signing off on Patriot deliveries allies had already paid for. Axios obtained the call transcript from Ukrainian officials. A US government official told the Kyiv Independent that Ukrainian officials' claims that Hegseth was holding up the missiles were "not true."

Washington says nothing has changed. "We have our own needs, too," Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on 20 October, but there is "nothing being deliberately denied to Ukraine." Hegseth told reporters in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, that the US had not changed its posture toward Ukraine, "but certainly with things like interceptors, we want to make sure our guys have the most possible as well."

US President Donald Trump said Elon Musk had restored Ukraine’s Starshield speeds, but the restrictions remained in place on 23 October, according to Ukrainian officials.

The cap, in place since 14 October, has disrupted interceptor drone missions against jet-powered Shaheds flying above 400 km/h for more than a week. On 16 October, Trump told reporters that, from what he understood, nothing had changed with the service. His latest claim that Musk restored it appears to acknowledge the restriction, even as he denies ordering it.

Ukraine says restrictions remain

“At the moment, there is no confirmation that the restrictions have been lifted,” a Defense Ministry official told LIGA.net on the morning of 23 October. The official said connections continued to drop at above 161 km/h.

Presidential adviser Serhii Beskrestnov wrote on Telegram on 23 October that no lifting had been recorded. He said occasional operation above the limit could result from SpaceX algorithms or usage conditions.

A day earlier, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had promised to return with information in “48 plus hours,” according to his remarks to reporters in Kyiv. A Ukrainian official separately told The Kyiv Independent that reports of restored speeds were “all false.”

A senior European official told the Associated Press that the cap remained at about 160 km/h and that Ukraine had no clear explanation of who ordered it or why.

Conflicting reports of a lift

Trump said Musk had restored the speeds but declined to clarify whether he had contacted him.

“I guess the bottom line, he put it back,” Trump said.

Meanwhile, AP reported that the Wall Street Journal said Musk had agreed to lift the restrictions. The Ukrainian drone and mapping channel Kartohraf posted on the evening of 22 October that the cap had been lifted. The Economist’s Oliver Carroll said that frontline drone commanders thought it had likely been lifted but were still testing, according to his post on X.

Who ordered the cap?

The order came from inside the White House, according to a Reuters report on 15 October. Days later, the Wall Street Journal reported that Musk ordered the slowdown. Rubio denied White House involvement, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on 20 October that the US had not ordered the restriction. Meanwhile, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal announced an inquiry into how the service was slowed, AP reported.

Ukraine’s gains in Donetsk Oblast rely on drones the cap slows

The 3rd Army Corps’ Operation Vivaldi retook ground north of Lyman in Donetsk Oblast with drones, many of which rely on Starlink or Starshield, and those gains could erode if the cap stays.

At the same time, Radio Svoboda reported that Ukraine needs a limit of at least 450 km/h and that Germany pays for the service under a contract running until April 2027.

The US president is portraying Zelenskyy as the villain as he strives for Russia’s approval

If Donald Trump could, he would fly to Munich to sign away Ukraine to Vladimir Putin, and return to wave the document as “peace in our time”, hoping to claim at least the second Fifa peace prize.

Whatever the complicated motives of Neville Chamberlain, his well-grounded fear after the carnage of a world war of another apocalypse and his wishful thinking that Hitler would be satiated after carving up Czechoslovakia, Chamberlain had not sent his son-in-law and former golf partner and real estate partner in advance to cut back-end deals with the Nazis to profit for his family and cronies.

Sidney Blumenthal, former senior adviser to Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton, has published three books of a projected five-volume political life of Abraham Lincoln: A Self-Made Man, Wrestling With His Angel and All the Powers of Earth. He is a Guardian US columnist and co-host of the Court of History podcast