US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Saturday he had held constructive talks with a Russian envoy in Florida as part of Washington’s drive to end the war in Ukraine.
The meeting came just a day before Ukrainian and Russian negotiators were scheduled to meet in Abu Dhabi to discuss a US-backed plan to halt the nearly four-year conflict.
“Today in Florida, the Russian Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev held productive and constructive meetings as part of the U.S. mediation effort toward advancing a peaceful resolution of the Ukrainian conflict,” Witkoff posted on X.
“We are encouraged by this meeting that Russia is working toward securing peace in Ukraine,” he added.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and White House Senior Advisor Josh Gruenbaum also attended the talks, he said.
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Earlier Saturday, a source close to the talks had said that they had started at 8:00 am (1300 GMT) and that Dmitriev had arrived in Miami.
Neither side released details of what was discussed.
Dmitriev, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top economic envoy, met Witkoff and Kushner earlier in January on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.