Trilateral talks a positive development: China Daily editorial

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha's confirmation on Tuesday that Kyiv is ready to attend trilateral talks with the United States and Russia in the United Arab Emirates next month has rekindled hopes for another round of peace talks on ending the prolonged crisis. Russia has said that talks are due to take place in early November.

Moscow and Kyiv also confirmed the same day a local ceasefire, brokered by the US, in Oleshky, Ukraine's Kherson region, to allow humanitarian aid in and civilians out. It is essential to build upon these positive developments until a comprehensive solution is reached.

With territorial disputes still deeply entrenched, the Oleshky ceasefire is best viewed as a useful precedent — an opening, however narrow, for expanding the scope of de-escalation — rather than a prelude to a full ceasefire per se.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has said he is willing to freeze the front line to halt the conflict, while rejecting any cession of the Ukrainian territory Russia now controls. Years of conflict have devastated the Ukrainian economy and created severe humanitarian pressure; the public overwhelmingly wants the fighting to stop.

Meanwhile, Ukraine's main backers, the US and the European Union, are pushing for talks in ways that have unsettled Kyiv. Washington has temporarily lifted sanctions on Russian diesel and announced imports to tame domestic fuel prices, with the first cargoes expected within weeks.

Ukraine and its European supporters see this as weakening the sanctions against Russia and potentially fueling Russia's military effort. Reports that Ukraine's battlefield use of SpaceX's Starlink system has slowed recently, allegedly at the White House's behest, have reinforced Kyiv's worries that continued US support cannot be relied upon.

Recent remarks by US Vice-President JD Vance have laid bare the reality that Ukraine is not a "formal" US ally, and Washington will not underwrite every demand Kyiv makes.

The EU, for its part, is struggling to hold its own coalition together. It is increasingly fatigued by the conflict after years of providing military aid to Ukraine, and the economic strain on various countries has become evident.

As a result, public support for Ukraine's EU accession is slipping while voices calling for improved ties with Moscow are growing louder in some major European capitals. This indicates that the transatlantic alliance that once presented a "united front" in aiding Ukraine is showing cracks.

Russia has agreed to resume trilateral talks "in principle", but its response underscores its wait-and-see attitude toward the prospects of the proposed talks, which it wants to focus on security guarantees and a broader European security framework.

Against this backdrop, China's consistent call for a political settlement is both prudent and necessary. Beijing has reiterated that dialogue and negotiation are the only viable ways to end the conflict, and that a future European security architecture should be balanced, effective and sustainable. Those principles point to a durable path to end a conflict that has already imposed enormous costs on not only the conflicting parties but also the wider world.

The upcoming trilateral talks should be welcomed. But for the talks to yield positive results, more efforts, including diplomatic flexibility, will be needed from all parties. It is crucial that relevant parties work together to promote dialogue and reconciliation. Efforts to achieve a political resolution deserve the wholehearted support of the international community.

Yet, the world should also fully recognize the complexity of the Ukraine crisis. The conflict's core issues remain unresolved, with the battlefield deadlocked and both sides showing little willingness to compromise. Something new is required as it will take more than a local ceasefire in Oleshky to secure a lasting agreement.