Ukraine is sending a top-level negotiating team to the United States for two days of talks with envoys of US President Donald Trump, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, as diplomatic efforts flicker back to life after weeks of drift.
Kyiv’s representatives will meet Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the US “today and tomorrow,” Mr Zelensky said, outlining a schedule that he described in a voice note to reporters yesterday.
“The Ukrainian negotiating team is due to meet Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the US tomorrow,” Mr Zelensky told reporters in a voice note yesterday.
He added: “The meeting is expected to last two days.
“We are also counting on a European team to join our negotiating group.”
Mr Zelensky said his chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov as well as Ukraine’s top officials Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kyslytsya and David Arakhamia will take part in the talks in Florida.
Firefighters at the burnt shell of a passenger bus following a Russian missile strike in Kramatorsk
He confirmed the planned discussions after a grim day in which a Russian strike on buses killed 30 people in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, marking one of the deadliest attacks in weeks.
US-led peace efforts to end the Ukraine war have largely been stuck, with Washington’s attention drawn to its conflict with Iran even as Kyiv says Russia has intensified aerial assaults.
US officials, however, said they were pressing ahead with a renewed push in an expanded format, following trips to Moscow and Kyiv last month by Mr Witkoff and Mr Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.
“They will discuss new ideas and proposals that American negotiators began developing with the Russians and Ukrainians during their recent visit to the region,” a US source familiar with the talks told AFP.
President Trump said this week that he had a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin
Mr Zelensky said last week that the United States was seeking to restart peace efforts by attempting to broker a new round of talks involving Ukraine and Russia, with the goal of holding it by the end of October.
The Kremlin said last month that three-way talks aimed at ending the war could take place in October.
Earlier negotiating rounds have produced no tangible progress toward a settlement, with Moscow refusing to abandon what Kyiv and its allies have described as maximalist demands for ending the fighting.
President Trump said earlier this week that he had a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin, though it was expected to centre on the reported death of a researcher at a Russian plague lab.
Still, there were signs Ukraine was also on the agenda: AFP reporters saw Mr Witkoff travelling with Mr Trump aboard Air Force One on Wednesday as the president headed to Texas on a campaign trip tied to the US midterm elections.
