The Russian president’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, is traveling to Miami to meet with the US president’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, and the White House’s son-in-law and adviser, Jared Kushner, a Russian government source told Reuters.
The following that were held this week by Messrs. Witkov and Kushner with Ukrainian and European officials, as part of the effort to find an agreement that will end the war that broke out in February 2022. The two were also scheduled to meet with Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov yesterday in this city, in the state of Florida (south).
The source in Moscow, aware of the details of the trip, noted that the possibility of Mr. Dmitriev meeting with Ukrainian negotiators in Miami has been ruled out.
“Trilateral contacts with the Ukrainian side are not planned,” added the Reuters source in the Russian government, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The Trump administration is pressing to end the nearly four-year-old war, but bridging the positions of the warring parties, Ukraine and Russia, as well as European Union leaders, on issues ranging from Kiev’s possible entry into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to possible territorial concessions is far from easy.
Messrs. Witkoff and Kushner worked with EU and Ukrainian negotiators to draft a new and amended peace plan. The original version of the text had been criticized by Brussels and Kiev, as they considered it overly favorable to Moscow.
The Russian presidency said on December 12 that it had not yet received the latest version of the plan, which was amended with input from Ukrainian and European officials.
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Usakov, who is not traveling to the US for these talks, warned that Moscow could reject some of the new proposals it contains.
The Kremlin insists that the exclusion of any possible accession of Ukraine to NATO is a fundamental condition of the negotiations.
Mr Ushakov also said that declaring a ceasefire in Ukraine would only be possible after Kiev’s forces withdraw from the entire Donbass region, implying that Russian troops would not move to other areas under Ukrainian control.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov reminded earlier this week that Russia’s opposition to the deployment of European troops in Ukraine, offered by the West to Kiev as one of the security guarantees under a possible future US-sponsored deal, is well known by all parties, adding however that this issue can also be discussed.
Source: APE-MPE, Reuters, ertnews.gr
