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Russian President Vladimir Putin told US special envoy Steve Witkoff on Wednesday that Moscow is ready in principle to resume three-way talks with Washington and Kyiv in mid-November, the Kremlin said, offering a possible route back to negotiations after months without them.

The meeting at the Constantine Palace in Strelnya, outside St Petersburg, lasted about three hours, according to Russian state media. Putin's foreign affairs adviser, Yuri Ushakov, gave the Kremlin's account to reporters afterwards. "The president informed Steve Witkoff that we are, in principle, ready to resume the aforementioned trilateral talks in mid-November on the main issue," Ushakov said. That issue, he said, is "establishing a security system for Russia and Ukraine after the end of the conflict". Ushakov later told Russian state television that the talks could be held in Abu Dhabi.

Witkoff travelled to Russia a day after meeting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store, Finnish Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and other European officials in Oslo. He told Putin the Oslo discussions had been productive and that "there is some degree of momentum". He said he hoped the two sides could discuss resuming trilateral talks so that technical teams could begin work on next steps. Witkoff said he had brought papers setting out ideas for elements of a peace deal, and that Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner would join the discussion remotely.

The Kremlin's reading of the Oslo proposals was mixed. Ushakov said Witkoff had described "some new aspects" in the approaches of Kyiv and European governments, but that "there wasn't really much substance in them". He later said Moscow was not fully satisfied with the proposals, while describing them as a step in the right direction. That gap between a willingness to meet and disagreement over the substance is the central uncertainty hanging over the announcement.

In his opening remarks, Putin thanked US President Donald Trump and Witkoff for their attention to the war and said Russia and the United States could discuss restoring economic ties. He also said Moscow, which has maintained a long relationship with Tehran, was ready to help if that could settle the crisis over Iran, and he referred to a possible meeting in China. On trade, Putin said the first tanker carrying 40,000 tonnes of diesel for the US market would leave in two or three days, and offered to supply fertiliser in large quantities.

The meeting opened with a Russian goodwill gesture: the release of Stephen Hubbard, a 74-year-old retired American teacher. Hubbard had been sentenced in 2024 to almost seven years in a penal colony after Russian prosecutors accused him of fighting for Ukraine, a claim his family disputed. Witkoff thanked Putin and called him a "humanitarian", a remark that drew criticism from Republican lawmakers in Washington. Trump said Hubbard was on his way home and that no prisoner swap had been required.

Ukraine's position has not changed publicly. Zelenskyy has argued that only a meeting of the countries' leaders can break the impasse, and he has described a freeze of the front line as the minimum step needed. Writing on social media as the St Petersburg talks took place, he said much depended on whether the American side could hear something new from Russia "about peace, and not about continuing the war". Trump, meanwhile, has increased pressure on Kyiv, saying this week: "We want Zelenskyy to make a deal."

The war is now in its fifth year. Three earlier rounds of trilateral negotiations, held in Abu Dhabi in January and February and in Geneva in February, produced little beyond exchanges of prisoners of war, with Moscow and Kyiv holding to their core demands. Russia has rejected proposals to freeze the current front line, while Ukraine and its European allies say security guarantees must be part of any settlement. The UN human rights office reported in early October that more than 400 civilians were killed or injured on average each week in Ukraine during the first eight months of 2026, a 55 percent increase on the same period last year.

Fighting continued while the diplomats met. Ukrainian officials said Russian attacks overnight killed three people and wounded 12 in Kyiv, and killed two people and wounded 11 near Kharkiv. The governor of Russia's Bryansk region, Yegor Kovalchuk, said a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and wounded two there. The reports could not be independently verified and the casualty figures are those given by each side.

No ceasefire was announced, and neither Washington nor Kyiv immediately confirmed the mid-November timetable. It is also unclear what the proposed talks would cover beyond a future security system, whether the sides have agreed on a venue, or whether technical teams will meet beforehand. Ushakov said Putin and Witkoff also discussed a possible meeting involving the Russian, Chinese and US leaders at an economic summit in China next month, which he said Beijing was preparing. Witkoff was expected to return to Oslo for further consultations, according to Norway's prime minister. The immediate test is whether Kyiv and Washington publicly back the November plan and whether the three sides name a date.

Nigeria has confirmed its first Ebola case in more than a decade, after a woman who arrived from Uganda tested positive for the virus in the capital, Abuja. The health ministry said the result was confirmed by laboratory tests on Tuesday, making Nigeria the first West African country drawn into the outbreak that began in the Democratic Republic of the Congo in May.

The patient developed symptoms on 7 October, four days after arriving in the country, according to the World Health Organization. She sought care at a private hospital in Abuja on 11 October and was kept there as her condition worsened. Ebola was confirmed on 20 October, and she is now in isolation and receiving treatment.

Health Minister Muhammad Ali Pate said contact tracing began immediately, with 44 close contacts identified so far. Most are healthcare workers. "We are doing everything possible to contain this case by tracing all the contacts the individual may have had," Pate said. He told the national broadcaster NTA that the woman had shown no symptoms when she landed and that she had not confirmed travelling to Congo herself. "We presume that it was likely picked in Uganda," he said.

Uganda's government pushed back on that assumption. The director general of health services, Charles Olaro, said preliminary information showed the woman had travelled to eastern Congo for business before passing through Uganda in early October, and that her symptoms began only after she reached Nigeria. "Travel through Uganda does not establish that infection occurred here. The location of exposure remains under investigation," Uganda's health ministry said. It added that the country has no confirmed active Ebola cases and urged the public to stay calm and keep washing hands.

The two accounts leave an important question open. Uganda says Nigeria has not yet supplied a detailed travel itinerary and clinical history. Nigeria has not disclosed the woman's nationality. The BBC, citing health sources, reported that she is not Nigerian and is the wife of a diplomat, a detail the authorities have not confirmed publicly. Her route and the point at which she was exposed are central to deciding where else officials must look for infections.

The outbreak behind the case is caused by the Bundibugyo species of Ebola, which is rare and has no approved vaccine or treatment, although trials are under way. The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention says the fatality rate is nearly 50%. More than 9,500 cases and at least 4,600 deaths have been recorded in Congo since May, according to figures from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control cited by the BBC. The Guardian reported that the WHO expects the outbreak to surpass the 11,000 deaths recorded in West Africa between 2014 and 2016, the deadliest Ebola epidemic on record.

The virus has spread steadily across the continent. Uganda reported 20 cases in May and June, most of them imported from Congo, and was declared free of the disease in August after its last patient was discharged. Kenya confirmed its first case this month in a traveller who had been in Congo, and has since recorded nine infections linked to that first patient. The spread to Kenya raised questions about how well border screening is working. On Monday, the United States advised its citizens to reconsider travel to Kenya because of the health risk.

Nigeria has prepared for this moment since June, when it set up an Ebola taskforce after the outbreak was declared in Congo. The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control stepped up surveillance when Kenya reported its first case, focusing on early detection, isolation, laboratory diagnosis, infection control and contact tracing. Pate pointed to the country's record in 2014, when it stopped an imported outbreak that killed eight people during the West African epidemic. "We have the systems in place," he said.

What happens next depends largely on the 44 contacts. Ebola's incubation period runs from two to 21 days, so anyone exposed may fall ill weeks from now. Public health teams are monitoring the contacts, and officials are using the woman's travel documents to trace passengers who shared her flights. Those passengers and the hospital staff who treated her before the diagnosis are the groups most likely to need follow-up testing.

For the region, the case is a test of whether the outbreak can be kept out of Africa's most populous country, with its dense cities and busy airports. Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya said the outbreak is now the most geographically extensive in history and called it "an extremely serious threat" that needs political leadership and funding. What remains unknown is whether this is a single imported case or the start of local transmission, and how many of the contacts will test positive in the coming three weeks.