US and Ukraine Report Advancements in Peace Negotiations to Put an End to the Russia War
The US and Ukraine are making success in their talks in Florida, and they want Russia to really commit to peace.
Negotiators from the US and Ukraine say that talks in Florida are making progress. They are asking Russia to show a “serious commitment to long-term peace” since talks in Moscow earlier this week finished without a breakthrough.
After two days of what they called “constructive discussions,” US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s national security council, held the call together.
They said that ending the war rests on Russia being “ready” to stop the fighting and take real steps to de-escalate the situation. The talks will go on for a third day on Saturday, and Jared Kushner, the son-in-law of former President Donald Trump, will also be there.
“To stop new aggression, the war must end and real steps must be taken toward ceasefire and de-escalation,” the statement said. This was the sixth round of talks in two weeks.
Before the talks in Florida, Witkoff met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday for almost five hours. Later, the Kremlin said that “no compromise” had been made on the US peace plan draft. However, Putin said that he was ready to keep talking “as many times as needed.”
Ukraine and several European partners have questioned Russia’s sincerity, pointing out that Moscow keeps making new demands and putting more pressure on the battlefield.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on Friday that he wanted “full information about what was said in Moscow and what other excuses Putin has come up with to drag out the war.”
Also, Kyiv wants the terms of the US peace plan to be changed after a draft that was thought to be good for Moscow got out to the media. Since then, changes have been made to the plan, but the most recent version has not been made public.
Some of the biggest problems that haven’t been solved yet are post-war security promises for Ukraine and giving up territory. At the moment, Russia controls about 15% of Ukraine. This includes big parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in the Donbas region.
On Friday, Putin told India Today that if Ukrainian troops didn’t leave Donbas all the way this week, Russia would “liberate these territories by force.”
Before the US group went to Moscow, Putin showed up at a Russian command post dressed as a soldier. Commanders there said they had taken Pokrovsk and local towns. Ukraine says it hasn’t lost control of the city.
In order to keep Russia from attacking again in the future, Kyiv and its European allies demand that either joining NATO or getting strong security guarantees from other sources is needed. Russia is completely against this, and Trump has said many times that he does not want Ukraine to join NATO.
A “key topic” of talks between Russian and US officials, according to the Kremlin, was Ukraine’s chances of joining NATO. Even though Trump thought the talks were “reasonably good,” he said it was too early to say what would happen because “it does take two to tango.”
