The U.S. envoys held several hours of talks with Ukrainian officials. British, French and German national security advisers, who were also in Kyiv, joined for the final hour. The U.S.-Ukrainian discussions were due to continue Sunday evening.<\/p>\n
During a break, Zelenskyy said officials discussed the possibility of security and economic guarantees for Kyiv, as well as a post-war “prosperity plan.”<\/p>\n
“In the last 10 to 12 months, I believe we have got stronger,” Zelenskyy said, adding that the U.S. and Europe noted this.<\/p>\n
Witkoff and Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, have visited Moscow several times in their roles as peace envoys. But Sunday was their first visit to Kyiv in their capacity as U.S. negotiators.<\/p>\n
Their visit was long sought by Ukraine’s leadership, and on the streets of Kyiv, which has been bombarded heavily in recent weeks, some residents were hopeful.<\/p>\n
“The issue can be solved in the blink of an eye. We want peace,” said military veteran Stepan Yermak. “I’ve fought myself, so I know what war is like. We need peace, because there’s no other way.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, pointing at right, sits across from U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump\u2019s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, during a meeting Sunday in Kyiv.<\/p>\n
UKRAINIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS SERVICE<\/p>\n
In previous talks, the sides remained far apart on key issues, including the future of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas. Russia has demanded Ukraine’s withdrawal from a belt of towns that it still controls there, but Kyiv has refused, reasoning that it can still hold on.<\/p>\n
“The question of Donbas … I believe, is the question of this war,” Zelenskyy told reporters Sunday.<\/p>\n
For Ukraine, hard security guarantees from its European allies and the U.S. are crucial to deterring Russia from invading again. Although he said the issue had been discussed, Zelenskyy did not detail if progress was made.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The U.S. envoys held several hours of talks with Ukrainian officials. British, French and German national security advisers,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":38370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[3044],"class_list":["post-38369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-lee-national"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}