WSJ: U.S., Ukrainian negotiators meet in Florida

From left, the U.S. delegation of Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner meeting with Ukrainian negotiators during Sunday’s talks in Florida.
Photo: AFP

Senior Trump administration officials met with Ukrainian negotiators in South Florida on Sunday to continue peace talks as President Trump pushes to end the war in Ukraine, ‘The Washington Post’ reports.

The talks will cover a timetable for elections in Ukraine, the possibility of land swaps between Russia and Ukraine and other issues that remain unresolved between the White House and Kyiv as they pursue agreement on terms of a proposed peace deal, according to a U.S. senior administration official.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was joined by Trump special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner. They met the Ukrainian delegation — led by Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine — at Shell Bay, Witkoff’s golf resort in South Florida.

The senior administration official said Witkoff and Kushner plan to leave later for Moscow to continue negotiations with Russia.

The talks in Florida follow weeks of diplomacy and negotiations after a U.S. proposal for a peace plan leaked online. Critics said the leaked plan heavily favored Russia, fueling widespread concern in Kyiv and among Ukraine’s closest allies in Europe. Rubio held a first round of negotiations with Ukrainian officials in Geneva last week that both sides said made progress on a mutually acceptable peace proposal.

At a news conference on Thursday, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin was clear on what he expects to occur.

“When Ukrainian troops leave the territories they hold, then the fighting will stop,” Putin said. “If they don’t, then we’ll achieve that through military means.”

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