The Kremlin announced this Wednesday that China has already begun preparations for a possible meeting between Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the APEC summit scheduled in Shenzhen for November 18 and 19, 2026.
The Kremlin's international policy advisor, Yuri Ushakov, was the one who made the announcement, stating that the Chinese hosts are "already preparing" for the possible meeting and that they could include it in the official program of activities "as long as the circumstances are favorable."
However, the meeting is far from being confirmed. The spokesperson for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mao Ning, stated on Tuesday that she "did not have information about a potential trilateral summit," and the Kremlin spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, also noted on the same day that "there are no proposals, agreements, or a specific agenda for the summit."
The announcement from Ushakov came just hours after the U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff met with Putin for approximately three hours at the Constantine Palace in St. Petersburg.
After that meeting, Ushakov indicated that Putin accepted "in principle" to resume the trilateral negotiations between Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine around November 10, although the Russian leader considered that the Ukrainian and European proposals presented by Witkoff contained "few useful elements" for progress.
The idea of a trilateral summit originated from a phone call between Putin and Trump on October 9, as revealed by the Wall Street Journal.
The format would exclude Ukraine, which generated immediate backlash from Kiev: Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrí Sibiga warned that such a meeting could reinforce Putin's international legitimacy.
Trump expressed openness to the proposal last Monday, framing it around nuclear arms control and denuclearization, in addition to the conflict in Ukraine.
The Secretary of State Marco Rubio supported the initiative and characterized a potential conversation among the three nuclear powers regarding arms control as "very positive."
The meeting this Wednesday in St. Petersburg also addressed other bilateral issues, such as potential supplies of Russian diesel to the U.S. and the release of American citizen David Hubbard, highlighting the breadth of the agenda between Moscow and Washington.
Trilateral conversations between Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine had been interrupted since mid-February 2026, when Washington shifted its focus to a military operation against Iran.
In September, Witkoff and Jared Kushner traveled to Moscow and Kiev in an attempt to revive the process, achieving only a 72-hour ceasefire without any significant political advancements.
The Kremlin had confirmed a bilateral meeting between Putin and Xi during the APEC summit since October 6, but did not mention any trilateral meeting with Trump at that time.
The news this Wednesday is that Moscow claims Beijing is actively working on the possible inclusion of that expanded format, although China has not yet confirmed it publicly.
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