HALLANDALE BEACH: US and Ukrainian officials sat down in Florida on Sunday to discuss outlines of a peace deal with Russia, talks that Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he expected to yield progress towards ending the more than 3-year-long war.
“It’s about creating a pathway forward that leaves Ukraine sovereign, independent and prosperous, and so we expect to make even more progress today,” Rubio said in Hallandale Beach, Florida, where the meeting took place.
Sunday’s discussions follow roughly two weeks of negotiations that began with a US blueprint for peace that critics said initially favored Russia, which started the Ukraine conflict with a 2022 invasion.
US President Donald Trump has expressed frustration at not being able to end the war. He pledged as a presidential candidate to do so in one day and has said he was surprised it has been so hard, given what he calls a strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has largely resisted concessions to stop the fighting.
Trump’s team has pressured Ukraine to make significant concessions itself, including giving up territory to Russia. The talks shifted on Sunday with a change in leadership from the Ukrainian side. A new chief negotiator, national security council secretary Rustem Umerov, led the talks for Kyiv after the resignation on Friday of previous team leader Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, amid a corruption scandal at home. As the meeting began, Umerov thanked the United States and its officials for their support.
“US is hearing us, US is supporting us, US is walking besides us,” Umerov said in English. Special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were also present to represent the US side. Witkoff is expected to meet Russian counterparts later this week. The talks took place near Miami at a private club, Shell Bay, developed by Witkoff’s real estate business. Zelenskiy had said he expects the results of previous meetings in Geneva would be “hammered out” on Sunday.
In Geneva, Ukraine presented a counter-offer to proposals laid out by US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv some two weeks ago.
Ukraine’s leadership, facing a domestic political crisis fueled by a probe into major graft in the energy sector, is seeking to push back on Moscow-friendly terms as Russian forces grind forward along the front lines of the war.
