Kyiv, Washington wrap second round of high-stakes negotiations in Miami

Representatives of Ukraine and the US have concluded their meeting in Miami, Florida, according to sources in the Ukrainian delegation cited by Suspilne.

According to the outlet, Ukraine was represented in the talks by National Security and Defence Council (NSDC) Secretary Rustem Umerov and the Chief of the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Andriy Hnatov.

On the American side, the negotiations involved Steve Witkoff, the special envoy of the US president, and Jared Kushner, the US leader’s son-in-law, as previously reported by The New York Times.

According to Umerov, the delegation worked under clear directives from the President of Ukraine: to protect the state's interests, maintain substantive dialogue, and advance the solutions developed during the meetings in Geneva. Ukraine’s Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Stefanishyna, also joined the delegation.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described the meeting as “a productive continuation of the negotiations in Geneva.” He stressed that Washington’s task goes beyond simply ending the war.

Commenting on the meeting, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that the Ukrainian delegation’s talks in the United States were constructive with regard to the next steps toward ending the war.

Three days earlier, on December 2, Witkoff and Kushner held a five-hour meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin. During that discussion, the sides examined the updated version of the US peace plan, revised following consultations with Kyiv.

A meeting between the American negotiators and Zelenskyy had been planned to follow, but it was cancelled. Instead, Witkoff and Kushner returned to the United States, where they briefed President Trump on the outcome of their talks in Moscow. The American president described the meeting as "very good."

Yury Ushakov, an aide to the Russian president who took part in the Kremlin talks, said the discussion focused on “the essence of what is contained in these American documents.”
“A compromise option was not found. But some of the American proposals look more or less acceptable. But they need to be discussed,” he noted.

Ushakov added that Moscow had received four documents related to a long-term peaceful settlement of the conflict, but declined to disclose their contents. Putin later clarified that the American side had divided its peace plan into four separate packages and suggested discussing each one individually.

According to The New York Times, these packages concern issues of Ukraine’s sovereignty, territorial matters, economic cooperation, and broader questions of European security.

By Tamilla Hasanova