Trump Says “Somebody Else” Should Negotiate for Ukraine as Zelensky Says Patriots Are Held Up

On Monday 19 October Donald Trump told reporters he would sit down with Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, said it was “time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine,” and was then told by Volodymyr Zelensky that the Pentagon was holding missiles Europe had already paid for. By Tuesday morning Steve Witkoff was reported to be preparing to fly to Oslo to meet Zelensky, and then on to Russia.

Silent Dossier set out the Kremlin’s proposal for a three-way summit at the APEC meeting in Shenzhen on 18 and 19 November a day earlier. Trump’s answer on Monday did not accept it, and it put a new question on the table: who sits in the room.

Trump said he had not agreed to a Putin and Xi summit and “would do it” anyway, with nuclear weapons on the agenda. He said it was time for someone other than Zelensky to negotiate for Ukraine. Zelensky told US senators that Patriot missiles are ready and waiting for a Pentagon approval. Witkoff’s reported Oslo trip puts Zelensky back at a table with the US envoy before any Russian meeting.

Trump spoke to reporters on Monday before leaving the White House to campaign in Kansas ahead of the 3 November midterm elections, according to Anadolu. Asked about a meeting with Putin and Xi, he said: “No, but I would do it. Not so much for Ukraine because Russia, frankly, has been fine on Ukraine.” He added that the agenda would be nuclear weapons and denuclearisation, and that he would do “anything I can do to end the war, whether somebody’s there or not,” as Euronews reported.

On Zelensky he said: “Zelenskyy doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Trump said, and then: “To be honest, I think it’s time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.” He also said: “We’ve given a lot to Ukraine. They’ve given us nothing.”

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that the summit idea exists. “The topic of such a hypothetical meeting has indeed been mentioned,” Euronews quoted him as saying, adding that no substantive proposals or agreements had been put forward. The Wall Street Journal, cited by Euronews, reported that a senior US official said Trump had not agreed to attend but could be receptive.

Ukraine’s foreign minister, Andrii Sybiha, wrote on X on Monday: “By any pragmatic or moral measure, Putin has no place at the table with presidents Trump and Xi,” he wrote. A trilateral meeting of the Russian, Chinese and US leaders, he said, “would do only the opposite” and “encourage Putin to continue this war.”

Zelensky spoke to US senators on Monday. “The Pentagon is delaying the delivery of missiles,” he said, according to Euronews. “The missiles are ready and they could already be in Ukraine. But unfortunately, there is still no approval.” He said the shipment was waiting for the sign-off of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, and that European countries had paid for the interceptors. After Russian strikes on energy sites he added: “Once again, there was no early warning from our partners.” Euronews reported no direct response from the Pentagon or the White House on the missiles.

The sequence on Monday ran in one direction. Trump said “time for somebody else to negotiate on behalf of Ukraine.” The same day Zelensky told American legislators that ready missiles were still waiting for approval. The Oslo plan was then reported with Zelensky on the guest list.

Trump’s own sentences sit side by side. Russia, he said, “has been fine on Ukraine,” and also “could have done a lot more to help Iran.” He said “we’ve given a lot to Ukraine,” and Zelensky answered with missiles he says were bought by Europe and are not delivered.

The Patriot dispute has a history on this site. On 15 October, the Kyiv Independent reported, Zelensky said Ukraine would halt energy strikes again only if it received more US-made Patriot interceptors, which he called a “minimum” condition. Silent Dossier covered the shortage of Patriot interceptors and the resumption of refinery strikes. Monday’s addition is a named step, Hegseth’s sign-off, that Zelensky says is missing.

Peskov, as Euronews quoted him, also said a final settlement is impossible without the participation of someone from Kyiv. The reported summit format gives Ukraine no seat. Sybiha’s post is aimed at that format.

Witkoff’s Oslo meeting is expected this week. Axios’s US official says he then hopes to see Putin, and the Kyiv Independent calls the schedule tentative. A Hegseth decision on the Patriot shipment would show whether Zelensky’s account holds in Washington. The Shenzhen summit on 18 and 19 November is the stated venue for the three-way meeting, and a senior US official told the Wall Street Journal only that Trump could be receptive.

The test is who is in the room. If Zelensky is in Oslo this week and absent from Shenzhen next month, the Monday remarks describe the plan. If Washington releases the missiles before Witkoff flies to Russia, they were a bargaining position.