Ukrainian negotiators have arrived in the United States for talks with Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, with the aim of ending the war with Russia after nearly four years, a member of the Ukrainian delegation said on Saturday.
US envoys have been holding separate negotiations with Kyiv and Moscow for months in an effort to reach an agreement to bring the conflict to an end. However, a number of issues remain unresolved, including the status of occupied territories and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Heating outages
These new talks, which will take place in Miami, Florida, come as a series of large-scale Russian bombardments of Ukrainian infrastructure have caused widespread power and heating outages during the winter. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has attributed the situation to a shortage of Western-supplied air defence missiles.
“Arrival in the United States. Together with [Security Chief] Rustem Umerov and [negotiator] Davyd Arakhamia, we will hold an important discussion with our American partners regarding the details of the peace agreement,” Kyrylo Budanov confirmed in a post on social media. He added that a joint meeting is planned with Steve Witkoff, Jared Kushner and US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll.
Russia 'ready for deal'
On Friday, Volodymyr Zelensky announced the trip and said he hoped to receive clarification on documents prepared with the American side, as well as on Russia’s position regarding them.
“If everything is finalised and the American side agrees, then a signing during the World Economic Forum in Davos next week is possible,” he added.
Donald Trump, for his part, told the Reuters news agency on Wednesday that Russian President Vladimir Putin is “ready to make a deal”, but that “Ukraine is less willing to do so”. The US President attributed the lack of progress in the negotiations to President Zelensky.