US and Ukrainian officials held talks in Florida on Sunday to discuss a potential outline for a peace deal to end the war with Russia.
The US delegation was led by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who said that good progress had been made but added that there’s “more work to be done,” including further discussions with Russia. President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, is set to travel to Moscow this week to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“That will continue later this week when Mr. Witkoff will travel to Moscow, but we have also been in touch with the Russians in varying degrees,” Rubio said.
Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, also attended the talks. While he doesn’t have an official position in the Trump administration, Kushner has been serving as an unofficial adviser to Witkoff and has been deeply involved in talks on the future of Gaza.
The Ukrainian delegation was led by Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the Ukrainian National Security Council, after Andriy Yermak, a close advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, resigned following a police raid on his home as part of an anti-corruption probe.
It’s unclear exactly what the US and Ukrainian delegations discussed on Sunday, but they likely covered the two major sticking points in the negotiations: territory and security guarantees.
The original US proposal to end the war, which was leaked to the media, required Ukraine to cede the territory it still controls in the Donbas, but Ukraine and its European backers rejected that point. Previous reports said that President Trump and Zelensky would work out the territorial details, but since then, Trump has said that he won’t meet with Zelensky until a peace plan is finalized.
Regarding security guarantees, Rubio has reportedly told the US’s European allies that the US won’t commit to any security guarantees until a peace deal is reached. France, the UK, and other European countries are pushing to deploy troops to Ukraine to guarantee the country’s security, an idea Russia has repeatedly rejected, and will sabotage the chances of peace if the European leaders keep insisting on it.
During talks in Geneva last Sunday, Rubio reportedly agreed with Ukrainian officials on removing a provision from the original US plan that guaranteed Ukraine wouldn’t join NATO, one of Russia’s key demands for a peace deal.
