DOMINANT ANGLE
Riga sees Putin's proposal as a three-way negotiation, without Ukraine, whose terms would be tailored for the Kremlin, and links it to the lifting of sanctions on Russian diesel.
Dominant angle identified — does not reflect unanimity of this country’s media
KEY POINTS
- 01
According to the Wall Street Journal, Putin proposed to Trump during a call on October 9 a meeting in November with Xi Jinping to discuss the end of the war in Ukraine.
- 02
The format would be considered on the sidelines of the APEC summit, on November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen; Peskov confirms discussions but speaks of a "hypothetical" possibility without a clear agenda.
- 03
After the call, Trump announced the lifting of sanctions targeting Russian diesel and its deliveries, including to the United States; a US official says he did not agree to the summit.
ANALYSIS
Riga, October 19, 2026. The Latvian press is reporting on information from the Wall Street Journal: Vladimir Putin allegedly proposed to Donald Trump, during a phone call on October 9, a meeting in November with Chinese President Xi Jinping to discuss the end of the war against Ukraine. Jauns.lv bluntly states that the Russian president wants to agree on the cessation of the conflict "in a way that is advantageous to the Kremlin" and refers to Putin as a "Russian dictator", a term that TVNET also uses in its dispatch.
The two media outlets detail the proposed framework. The Kremlin allegedly suggested holding this three-way meeting on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, scheduled for November 18 and 19 in Shenzhen, southern China. The American daily relies on a former member of the Russian intelligence services to date the proposal back to the October 9 phone call.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov confirmed to the newspaper that discussions about a possible meeting had taken place, while tempering: "For now, there is no clear understanding of the meeting itself or its agenda, although the three parties recognize the hypothetical possibility that such a meeting could take place." A senior US administration official, cited by the WSJ, indicates that Trump has not yet agreed to the summit, but could, in general, be open to the idea.
The Latvian articles also link the episode to the sanctions policy: after this conversation, the American president announced the lifting of measures targeting Russian diesel and its deliveries, including to the United States. Both pieces of information appear in the same paragraph, presenting the sequence as a whole without further comment from the Latvian press.
These brief and largely identical texts do not give a voice to either Kiev or European capitals. The narrative focuses on a trio of Moscow, Washington, and Beijing that would set the terms for the end of the war, with the underlying concern expressed in Jauns' title: a settlement whose terms would benefit Russia.
