A progress was reported at the US-Ukraine negotiations on ending the war

The US and Ukrainian delegations in a joint statement on Sunday welcomed the fruitful and constructive exchanges that took place during negotiations in Miami with European allies aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

“Over the past three days in Florida, the Ukrainian delegation has held a series of fruitful and constructive meetings with its American and European partners,” the statement posted by Steve Witkoff, Donald Trump’s special envoy, and Rustam Umarov, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, said in a statement on X.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had earlier said that work was continuing on “documents related to ending the war, security guarantees and reconstruction”.

Ukrainian, European and U.S. negotiators have been meeting in Miami since Friday for a series of talks led since Friday by Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law.

The Kremlin has played down hopes for the Miami talks, with Moscow deeming the proposed amendments to the plan unacceptable.

Washington last month presented a 28-point plan to end the war, but the Ukrainians and their European allies considered the first version more favourable to Moscow, before amending it after consultations with Kiev and the European Union.

But the Kremlin is unlikely to accept the amendments, calling them “unconstructive” based on what has become publicly known.

Moscow confirmed that its envoy was in the United States to receive the amendments to the plan and transfer them to the Kremlin, denying that preparations for trilateral negotiations were being made.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told state television that Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev “is supposed to receive information about what the Americans and Europeans have prepared” about the plan and to inform Moscow of it later.

While little information has been released about the latest version, Kyiv is likely to be asked to cede some territory in exchange for U.S. security guarantees.

The Russian and Ukrainian envoys were scheduled to meet separately with Witkov and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, after the Kremlin had previously rejected the idea of trilateral talks. Ukraine noted that European envoys were also in the American city.

Zelensky described the talks as “constructive,” noting that they are “moving at a fairly fast pace,” but cautioned that “a lot depends on whether Russia feels the need to actually end the war”.

“Unfortunately, the real signals coming from Russia remain only negative: attacks along the front line, Russian war crimes in border areas, ongoing strikes on our infrastructure,” he wrote on X.

He called the week “historic” for Ukraine, thanking Europe for pledging 90 billion euros to fund Kyiv over the next two years. “We have fought for a long time for this,” he added.

President Vladimir Putin on Friday hailed the gains he noted the Russian military has made on the eastern front in recent months, threatening more in the coming weeks.

“Our forces are advancing along the entire line of contact … The enemy is retreating in all directions… I am convinced that we will see more successes before the end of the year,” he added.

Zelensky reported that in one week, Russia launched “about 1,300 attack drones, about 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and nine missiles of various types” against Ukraine.

Most of them targeted the Black Sea region of Odesa, where sustained strikes destroyed ports, bridges and energy facilities, killing eight people on Saturday.

In the eastern region of Sumy, Russian forces attempted to breach an area previously spared from intense ground attacks, and Ukraine reported that 50 people had been forcibly removed from a local village.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sebiga said that “most of them elderly women, were displaced from a small Ukrainian village called Grabowsky, which is located directly on the border in the Sumy region”.

Peskov said in an interview published on Sunday that Putin expressed his readiness to talk with French President Emmanuel Macron about the conflict.

Macron had made several calls with Putin in the run-up to the conflict and during its early months, in an attempt to pressure the Russian president to stop the war.

Peskov said in an interview with the state-run RIA Novosti news agency that Putin “expressed his readiness to have a dialogue with Macron”.

In response, the Elysee said that “the Kremlin’s public approval of this step is welcome,” adding that “in the coming days we will determine the best way forward” on this matter.

But he stressed that any discussion with Moscow would be “fully transparent,” so that Zelensky and the Europeans would be aware of its content.

Relations between major European powers and Moscow are strained, driven by mutual fears of expansionist ambitions and an almost complete lack of trust.

Moscow, which began its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, sees Europe as pro-war and that its participation in the talks is obstructing it.

European leaders, on the other hand, see Russia’s expansionist intentions on the rise, especially after a series of acts of sabotage, cyberattacks, and drone incursions during the course of the war.

But Macron said earlier in the week that he believed Europe should reconnect with Putin, rather than leave the United States alone in the negotiations to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War Two.