Officials from the United States, Ukraine and Europe have convened in Miami to review proposals aimed at ending the war with Russia before winter, US envoy Steve Witkoff announced on Friday.
Witkoff said the meeting brought together Ukraine, the European Commission, NATO and the E3. The discussions addressed energy resilience, grain exports, security guarantees, post-war reconstruction, economic prosperity and European Union accession, alongside arrangements to prevent future conflict.
Writing on X, Witkoff described the talks as constructive and aimed at establishing a durable and lasting peace. The diplomatic push follows visits to Moscow and Kyiv last month by Witkoff and Jared Kushner as Washington seeks to revive talks that have achieved little progress.
The meeting took place following warnings from Washington over the course of the war. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said on Thursday that the conflict had reached a dangerous stalemate, cautioning that a failure to reach a negotiated settlement could widen the war to neighbouring NATO countries.
“The other way that stalemates end is through escalation,” Rubio told reporters.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told US President Donald Trump earlier on Friday that the resumption of talks with Ukraine was unlikely, pointing to drone attacks on Moscow during parliamentary elections last month.
The diplomacy has also been complicated by a US-Russia diesel deal reached on Friday after Trump blamed Ukrainian strikes on Russian refineries for rising diesel prices. The arrangement was criticised by US lawmakers, European allies and Zelenskyy, who called the agreement a “gift to Putin”. Hours after the pact, a Ukrainian drone struck a Russian fuel site.
The negotiations also unfolded against a backdrop of deadly violence, including a Russian strike on civilian buses in eastern Ukraine that killed 33 people, which authorities said was the deadliest attack this year.
