Russian and US negotiators met in Miami, US, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called on the US to step up pressure on Russia to end the war against Ukraine.
Saturday’s meeting took place between Russian President Vladimir Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev and U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner.
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Dmitriev told reporters that talks were positive and would continue on Sunday.
“The discussions are progressing constructively,” Dmitriev said. “They started before, they continue today, and they will continue tomorrow.”
Earlier, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he may also participate in the talks in Miami. He said progress has been made in discussions to end the war, but there is still a way to go.
“The role we’re trying to play is to see if there’s any overlap that they can agree on. We’ve invested a lot of time and energy into that, and we continue to do so,” Rubio said. “It may not be possible. I hope so. I hope it can be completed this month before the end of the year.”
President Trump’s special envoys have been negotiating a 20-point peace plan with Ukrainian, Russian and European officials for weeks.
U.S. officials say progress has been made, but major differences remain over territorial and security potential issues that Kiev says are essential to any deal.
Russia has shown little sign that it is prepared to give up its vast territorial claims in Ukraine, but believes it is in a good position to secure territory as the war escalates and political rifts between Ukraine’s European allies surface.
President Zelensky said in Kiev that he continues to support the US-led negotiation process, but that diplomacy must be accompanied by more pressure on Russia.
“The United States has to say clearly that without diplomacy, there will be full-scale pressure…Putin is not yet feeling the kind of pressure that should be there,” he said.
The Ukrainian leader said the United States is also proposing a new format for consultations with Russia that would consist of tripartite talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the U.S. national security adviser level.
President Zelenskiy expressed skepticism about whether “something new” would emerge from the talks, but said he would support trilateral talks if progress was made in areas such as a prisoner exchange and a meeting of national leaders.
“If such a meeting were to be held now to allow for a prisoner exchange, or if the Council of National Security Advisors were to reach an agreement at their summit…I cannot object. We support such a US proposal. Let’s see how things go,” he said.
The last formal face-to-face meeting between Ukrainian and Russian envoys was in Istanbul in July, when prisoners were exchanged but little else took place.
The meeting in Miami came after Putin praised Moscow’s battlefield victories at his annual press conference on Friday and promised to press ahead with a military offensive in Ukraine.
But Putin suggested Russia might pause its devastating attack on Ukraine and allow it to hold a presidential vote, a prospect Zelensky rejected.
Meanwhile, the death toll from an overnight Russian ballistic missile attack on port infrastructure in Ukraine’s Black Sea Odessa region rose to eight, with 30 injured.
Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said a civilian bus was hit in the attack.
Russian attacks on coastal areas have wreaked havoc in recent weeks, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without bridges and without electricity or heating in freezing temperatures.
Earlier, the Russian government announced it would expand attacks on Ukrainian ports in retaliation for targeting oil tankers that violated sanctions.
Ukraine on Saturday claimed to have destroyed two Russian fighter jets at an airfield in Moscow-occupied Crimea, security agency SBU said. Kiev’s military said it had attacked a Russian oil rig and a nearby patrol boat in the Caspian Sea.
Putin said Russia’s first full-scale invasion of Ukraine was a “special military operation” to “demilitarize” the country and prevent NATO expansion.
Kiev and its European allies claim that the war was the largest and deadliest on European soil since World War II, an unprovoked and illegal land grab, and a tsunami of violence and destruction.
