Rubio, Witkoff meet with Ukrainian officials in push to finalize deal after Zelenskyy’s top negotiator resigns
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner are expected to meet Ukrainian negotiators Sunday in Florida to build on the recent peace talks in Geneva, and work through the remaining details of the agreement reached last week.
The Florida meeting comes after Andriy Yermak, Ukraine’s top negotiator, resigned Friday after anti-corruption agencies raided his home. Ukraine has been embroiled in an alleged $100 million kickback corruption scheme linked to the state-owned nuclear power company Energoatom.
“The dialogue based on the Geneva points will continue. Diplomacy remains active. The American side is demonstrating a constructive approach, and in the coming days it is feasible to flesh out the steps to determine how to bring the war to a dignified end,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said. “The Ukrainian delegation has the necessary directives, and I expect the guys to work in accordance with clear Ukrainian priorities.”
Zelenskyy wrote on X that Rustem Umerov, the head of the Ukrainian delegation and secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, would lead efforts to outline the steps to end the war and to hammer out the remaining elements of the peace framework.
A U.S. official told Fox News Tuesday that Kyiv agreed to a peace deal, with only minor points still to be resolved.
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Witkoff is expected to travel to Moscow this week to discuss the updated peace framework that reportedly stands at 19 points instead of the original 28, which was criticized by European leaders as too favorable to the Kremlin.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov suggested Moscow could reject the White House’s latest Ukraine peace deal framework if it does not uphold the “spirit and letter” of the understandings reached at the August Alaska summit between Trump and Vladimir Putin.
He warned that if the terms of the “key understandings” are “extinguished” then the situation would become “fundamentally different.”
Russia has maintained its maximalist demands in negotiations, insisting Ukraine be barred from joining NATO and required to give up the rest of the Donbas region as part of any agreement.
The Kremlin has kept up its drone and missile barrages even as negotiations continue to move forward. Zelenskyy said Sunday that over the past week alone, Russia fired nearly 1,400 attack drones, 1,100 guided aerial bombs and 66 missiles at Ukraine.
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