Kyiv, 23 October 2026
Senior NATO officials met Ukrainian government representatives in Kyiv to discuss urgent winter defence needs, air defence supplies and military cooperation. Separately, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed the Hudson Institute online, calling for US-Ukraine-Russia negotiations in November. He warned of delayed ballistic missile interceptors and Starlink restrictions affecting Ukrainian forces, while announcing the return of 270 prisoners from Russian captivity.
NATO officials visit Ukraine
Kyiv, 23 October 2026
On 20-22 October 2026, NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Political Affairs and Security Policy, Mr. Douglas Jones, and NATO’s Assistant Secretary General for Operations, Dr. Christian Buck, visited Ukraine.
They met with Ukrainian officials including Deputy Head of the Office of the President Ihor Zhovkva, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Olexandr Mischenko, Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Vsevolod Chentsov, Deputy Minister of Defence Serhii Boyev, and Secretary of the National Security and Defence Council Ihor Klymenko.
They discussed the battlefield situation, urgent needs ahead of the winter, and Ukraine’s ongoing reform efforts. The Assistant Secretaries General reaffirmed NATO’s steadfast support for Ukraine, including through the Prioritised Ukraine Requirements List (PURL) mechanism, which provides crucial military equipment, including air defence, as well as the Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP), through which a range of support is provided including in the context of military medicine.
While in Kyiv, they also engaged with members of the Verkhovna Rada, Ukrainian civil society organisations, Allied counterparts, and staff at the NATO Representation to Ukraine (NRU). They also joined Deputy Minister of Veteran Affairs Oleg Shymanskyi in visiting a military rehabilitation centre supported by project Renovator, through which NATO assists Ukraine with the rehabilitation of injured personnel and the reintegration of veterans into civilian life.
Throughout their engagements, Assistant Secretaries General Buck and Jones highlighted Ukraine’s contributions to Transatlantic security. NATO welcomes Ukraine’s readiness to share its battlefield experience and innovation with Allies. Working closely together to identify and apply lessons learned from Russia’s war against Ukraine is a testament to the deepening cooperation between NATO and Ukraine.
Topics
- ▪ Relations with Ukraine
- ▪ NATO’s support for Ukraine
- ▪ Comprehensive Assistance Package (CAP) for Ukraine
Source – NATO
President Zelenskyy’s Online Address at the Hudson Institute: We Need Trilateral Talks Between Ukraine, America, and Russia
Kyiv, 23 October 2026
Thank you so much. Thank you for your words of support.
Dear friends, dear Hudson Institute community,
Thank you for your attention to us, to Ukraine, and for trying to understand what is really going on.
And thank you to everyone here in the room and to everyone who will watch our conversation.
It’s important that as many people as possible know the facts and understand what we can do.
Just before our meeting here, my team and I spoke with President Trump’s representatives – Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. And that’s why I’m a little bit late. Sorry about that. We talked about the results of the meetings in Norway, in Oslo, and St. Petersburg, and how we can move diplomacy forward this November.
We have an agreement to hold a trilateral meeting – Ukraine, the United States, and Russia – at the team level. And we hope it will happen. The plan is to meet in the first half of November. And as early as possible, of course. But we are ready to meet any day – even tomorrow. But it all depends on the Russians.
We expected a trilateral meeting this October too. But it didn’t happen – because the Russians came up with another reason not to meet.
And now we all need to focus on making these meetings happen, of course together, of course with America, of course with Europe, and with all our other partners. We need these meetings, and we need diplomacy to move forward. And can these meetings happen without America or without American pressure on Russia? Probably not. And that’s why we are really counting on you, on America, to keep this a priority at every level. We need trilateral talks between Ukraine, America, and Russia. And Europe must also be part of this conversation. And we need to move from technical-level trilateral talks to a meeting of the leaders – because the key issues can only be settled at that level.
And today, we also have important news about our people. We had a prisoner exchange, and we brought 270 of our people home to Ukraine from Russian captivity. Many of them were held in absolutely terrible conditions. Some had been in captivity since 2022.
So this is very good news for us today – for our people and for all our families because our people are home. Unfortunately, it’s the only good news so far.
The other two pieces of news are not so good.
First, the speed limits on Starlink and Starshield are still there. And the speed has not been restored.
And the delivery of interceptors to protect us against Russian ballistic missiles is still delayed. We’re waiting for interceptors that were already agreed on. But they are still not coming. Hope that everything is on the way. And this is a real problem for us, because the Russians attack us almost every day. Russia attacks us massively.
So that’s where things stand today. And all of this is happening while we continue our quite successful operations on the front. We keep defending positions. Things have become harder – partly because of the Starlink and Starshield policies and speed limits. But our frontline is still holding. And we are doing our best to keep our logistics working, and we continue defending ourselves. And I am proud of how strong our people are.
And I really want our relations – between Ukraine and America, and with all our other partners – to be just as strong. As strong as possible. Strong, truly friendly, and without misunderstandings, of course. Because without America – without a strong America, an America that cares about what happens in the world – the world would definitely be a worse place.
These days, people ask why Ukraine is speaking more openly, directly to the world. The answer is simple. We want people to understand us. And I mean people – people, societies, nations, as many people as possible.
And when people understand what is really going on, political leaders can take a stronger path – the one that can really bring peace closer. And peace is what we want more than anything.
And I hope our conversation today will help people in America better understand our position and see what we can achieve through diplomacy.
Thank you so much.
Glory to Ukraine!
Source – President of Ukraine