Ukraine and US negotiators to meet in Miami following Moscow talks

Ukrainian Security Council Secretary and chief negotiator Rustem Umerov is to meet with US President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner in Miami on Thursday to discuss the results of their talks with Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin earlier this week, Ukraine’s ambassador to the US has confirmed.

“Rustem Umerov, the head of the delegation, who has no other job but to negotiate with American and European allies, will land in the United States tomorrow to have another meeting with the delegation,” Olha Stefanishyna told reporters after speaking at the US Senate on Wednesday.

A delegation headed by Umerov met with Witkoff, Kushner and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Florida on Sunday for talks both sides hailed as “productive” before Witkoff and Kushner travelled to Moscow for a five-hour meeting with Putin, his aide Yury Ushakov and envoy Kirill Dmitriev.

Ushakov described that meeting as “useful, constructive and highly substantive”, but said it had failed to bring a deal to end the war any closer, with the issue of control over swathes of Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region remaining a central one for the Russian leader.

Trump, meanwhile, told reporters on Wednesday that the Kremlin meeting had been “reasonably good” and that Witkoff and Kushner had got the impression that Putin would “like to see the war ended”.

“Their impression was very strongly that he wants to make a deal,” Trump said, though he added that what came next in the peace process was unclear as “it does take two to tango”.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that “the world clearly feels that there is a real opportunity to end the war” amid the Trump administration’s efforts, and stressed that the “current diplomatic activity in negotiations must be backed by pressure on Russia”.

Ahead of a two-day state visit to India on Thursday and Friday, Putin told news outlet India Today that the peace plan document presented to him by Witkoff and Kushner in Tuesday’s meeting was based on “agreements” reached between him and Trump at a summit in Alaska in August.

He also warned that Russia would take the entire Donbas under its control whatever the cost: “Either we will liberate these territories by force, or Ukrainian troops will leave these territories and stop killing people,” Putin said in comments reported by Russian state news agency RIA Novosti.