Ukraine Talks Without Ukraine? Munich, Yalta and the UN Charter | CLAT Explainer

VIDEO EXPLAINER | 20 OCTOBER 2026

On 19 October 2026, reports said that Russia had proposed a meeting of the leaders of Russia, the United States and China to discuss ending the war in Ukraine. A senior US official confirmed the proposal. The reported venue is China, on the sidelines of the APEC Leaders’ Meeting in Shenzhen on 18–19 November 2026. Ukraine is not among the three parties named. No date, agenda or format has been agreed, and China has not confirmed the meeting. Below: what was proposed, what each side said, the legal principle, and two precedents often compared with it, Munich (1938) and Yalta (1945).

1. What was proposed, and who said what

The Kremlin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said on 19 October that because all three heads of state may attend the summit in China, the subject of such a meeting “was indeed raised”. He added that no specific proposals or agreements had been put forward and that there was no clear understanding of an agenda. He also said a final settlement needs someone from Kyiv.

US President Donald Trump told reporters on 19 October that he was willing to meet President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping in China next month. He said the meeting would mainly be about nuclear weapons and denuclearisation, and that it could also touch on the war in Ukraine. Reports noted that the format under discussion did not include Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Mao Ning, said she had no information to provide on the question. Ukraine’s Foreign Minister, Andrii Sybiha, objected to a Russia–China–US meeting on Ukraine without Kyiv. He said a meeting of the leaders of Ukraine, the US and Russia could help end the war sooner, while a Russia–China–US meeting would encourage Russia to continue the war.

2. The legal principle: sovereignty and the UN Charter

The UN Charter is the starting point. Article 2(1) states that the UN is based on the sovereign equality of all its Members. Article 2(4) requires all Members to refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state. A peace settlement decides territory and borders, the matters these articles protect. This is why Kyiv and its partners use the principle “Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine”: decisions on Ukraine’s future should not be taken without Ukraine at the table.

3. Precedent one: Munich, 1938

The Munich Agreement was signed in the early hours of 30 September 1938 by four powers: Germany, the United Kingdom, France and Italy. It allowed Germany to annex the Sudetenland, a border region of Czechoslovakia with a large ethnic-German population. Czechoslovakia was not invited to the conference, although the agreement decided its territory. German troops occupied the Sudetenland in early October 1938. Less than six months later, on 15 March 1939, Germany occupied the remaining Czech lands and the next day declared the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia.

4. Precedent two: Yalta, 1945

The Yalta Conference met from 4 to 11 February 1945. The leaders of three powers attended: Franklin D. Roosevelt (USA), Winston Churchill (UK) and Joseph Stalin (USSR). Among other decisions, they agreed that Poland’s eastern border would broadly follow the Curzon Line, with Poland to gain territory in the west. The Polish government-in-exile in London, then recognised by the US and the UK, was not represented. Yalta is a city in Crimea, a peninsula at the centre of the present war; the conference was held at the Livadia Palace.

Both precedents are cited for one shared feature: an agreement about a country’s territory reached by other powers while that country was not at the table. The 2026 proposal has not produced any agreement; it remains a proposal.

5. India’s position

India has consistently called for a peaceful resolution through dialogue and diplomacy, with respect for the UN Charter, sovereignty and territorial integrity. This was set out in the India–Ukraine Joint Statement of 23 August 2024, issued during the Prime Minister’s visit to Kyiv. India applies a related principle to its own neighbourhood: under the Simla Agreement of 2 July 1972, India and Pakistan agreed to settle their differences by peaceful means through bilateral negotiations, and India cites it to say that India–Pakistan issues are bilateral, with no third-party mediation. India is not a member of APEC, the forum that would host the proposed meeting.

Sources

Reports of 19–20 October 2026 by The Moscow Times, Kyiv Post, Euronews and Ukrainska Pravda (Kremlin, US, Chinese and Ukrainian statements); Shenzhen Municipal Government on APEC 2026; the UN Charter, Chapter I (un.org); US Department of State, Office of the Historian, on the Yalta Conference; Britannica on the Munich Agreement; the India–Ukraine Joint Statement (pmindia.gov.in, 23 August 2024); the Simla Agreement (1972); Asia Society on India and APEC.