BBC : US special envoy Steve Witkoff will meet the head of Ukraine’s national security council, Rustem Umerov, for talks in Miami on Thursday, the White House has confirmed.
The meeting comes after Witkoff spent almost five hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, negotiations which the Kremlin said produced “no compromise” on ending the war in Ukraine.
US President Trump said the talks – also attended by his son-in-law Jared Kushner – were “reasonably good”, but added that it was too soon to say what would happen because “it does take two to tango.”
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybhia said Russia must “end the bloodshed”, and accused Putin of “wasting the world’s time”.
When asked by a reporter whether Witkoff and Kushner believed Putin genuinely wanted to end the war, Trump said: “[Putin] would like to end the war. That was their impression.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Zelensky had said a meeting between US and Ukrainian negotiators would take place “in the coming days”.
In a statement on X, Zelensky said: “Right now, the world clearly feels that there is a real opportunity to end the war.”
But he added that negotiations must be “backed by pressure on Russia”.
The US-Russia talks at the Kremlin followed days of US meetings with Ukrainian and European leaders, after concerns had been expressed that the draft of a peace deal was too slanted towards Russia’s demands.
“Some of the US proposals look more or less acceptable, though they need to be discussed further”, Ushakov said, while adding that others had been openly criticised by Russia’s leader.
Although Ushakov did not elaborate further, at least two major points of contention remain between Moscow and Kyiv – the fate of Ukrainian territory seized by Russian forces and security guarantees for Ukraine.
