American and Ukrainian officials held talks aimed at creating “reliable security guarantees” for Ukraine as part of a US-backed peace plan to end Russia’s war, ahead of US special envoy Steve Witkoff’s critical visit to Moscow.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the discussions were “productive”, but there is “more work to be done”, after meeting a Ukrainian delegation led by Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council, in Florida on Sunday.

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“This is delicate. It’s complicated,” he said.

Before the talks, which also included Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, Rubio said the meeting was aimed at “creating a pathway” for a sovereign Ukraine.

After the talks, he said there are “a lot of moving parts” in discussions, and “obviously, there’s another party involved [Russia] here that will have to be a part of the equation”.

Rubio said the United States has been in touch “in varying degrees” with the Russians and has “a pretty good understanding of their views as well”.

Umerov, who also hailed the negotiations as “productive”, earlier wrote on X: “We have clear directives and priorities: safeguarding Ukrainian interests, ensuring substantive dialogue, and advancing on the basis of the progress achieved in Geneva.”

He added that negotiators want to “secure real peace for Ukraine and reliable, long-term security guarantees”.

The talks came a week after Rubio and Ukrainian negotiators met in Geneva, Switzerland, to revise Trump’s peace plan, which was initially criticised as a Russian wish list.

The sit-down set the stage for Witkoff’s planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which Trump earlier signalled would take place this week.

Putin said the US draft, which has not yet been published, could serve as a “basis for future agreements”, adding that his talks with Witkoff should focus on the Russian-occupied Donbas and Crimea regions.

“This is about ending a war in a way that creates a mechanism for a way forward that will allow them [Ukraine] to be independent and sovereign and never have another war again, and create tremendous prosperity for its people – not just [to] rebuild the country but to enter an era of extraordinary economic progress,” said Rubio ahead of the meeting.

Talks between US and Ukrainian officials got off to a “good start” and are taking place in a “warm atmosphere conducive to potential progressive outcome”, said Ukrainian First Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Sergiy Kyslytsya on X.

‘Important days’

The negotiations come at a sensitive moment for Ukraine as it continues to push back against Russian forces that invaded in 2022, with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reeling from a corruption scandal that led to the resignation of his chief of staff, Andriy Yermak, this week.

It was Yermak who sat down with Rubio in Geneva last week to make amendments to Trump’s original 28-point plan, which initially envisioned Ukraine ceding its entire eastern region of the Donbas to Russia, limiting the size of its military, and giving up on joining NATO.

The US pared back the original draft to 19 points following criticism from Kyiv and Europe, but the current contents remain unclear.

Zelenskyy wrote on X that the United States is “demonstrating a constructive approach”.

“In the coming days, it is feasible to flesh out the steps to determine how to bring the war to a dignified end,” he said.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian president said he spoke with NATO chief Mark Rutte, and noted, “These are important days and much can change”.

French President Emmanuel Macron will host Zelenskyy for talks in Paris on Monday, the French presidency announced.

As Russia advances on the front line, its forces have attacked Ukraine’s capital and the region for two nights in a row ahead of the talks in the US.

Russian attacks overnight on Saturday killed six people and wounded dozens of others across Ukraine, and cut power to 400,000 households in Kyiv.

A drone attack on the outskirts of Kyiv killed one person and wounded 11, the regional governor said.

Hours earlier, a Ukrainian security source said that Kyiv was responsible for attacks on two oil tankers in the Black Sea that it believed were covertly transporting sanctioned Russian oil.