{"id":427599,"date":"2025-12-06T00:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/427599\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T00:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:22:09","slug":"us-and-ukrainian-officials-cite-progress-in-peace-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/427599\/","title":{"rendered":"US and Ukrainian officials cite progress in peace talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s<\/a> advisers and Ukrainian officials say they\u2019ll meet for a third day of talks on Saturday after making progress on finding agreement on a security framework for postwar Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The two sides also offered the sober assessment that any \u201creal progress toward any agreement\u201d ultimately will depend \u201con Russia\u2019s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

The statement from U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff<\/a>, Trump\u2019s son-in-law Jared Kushner as well as Ukrainian negotiators Rustem Umerov and Andriy Hnatov came after they met for a second day in Florida on Friday. They offered only broad brushstrokes about the progress they say has been made as Trump pushes Kyiv and Moscow to agree to a U.S.-mediated proposal to end nearly four years of war.<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cBoth parties agreed that real progress toward any agreement depends on Russia\u2019s readiness to show serious commitment to long-term peace, including steps toward de-escalation and cessation of killings,\u201d the statement said. \u201cParties also separately reviewed the future prosperity agenda which aims to support Ukraine\u2019s post-war reconstruction, joint U.S.\u2013Ukraine economic initiatives, and long-term recovery projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. and Ukrainian officials also discussed \u201cdeterrence capabilities\u201d that Ukraine will need \u201cto sustain a lasting peace.\u201d<\/p>\n

Witkoff<\/a> and Kushner\u2019s talks in Florida with Umerov, Ukraine\u2019s lead negotiator, and Hnatov follow discussions between President Vladimir Putin<\/a> and the U.S. envoys at the Kremlin on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Friday\u2019s session took place at the the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, a high-end private golf and lifestyle destination owned by Witkoff\u2019s real estate development company.<\/p>\n

Previous diplomatic attempts to break the deadlock have come to nothing and the war<\/a> has continued unabated. Officials largely have kept a lid on how the latest talks are going, though Trump\u2019s initial 28-point plan<\/a> was leaked.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy<\/a> said his country\u2019s delegation in Florida wanted to hear from the U.S. side about the talks at the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

Zelenskyy, as well as European leaders backing him, have repeatedly accused Putin of stalling in peace talks<\/a> while the Russian army tries to press forward with its invasion. Zelenskyy said in a video address late Thursday that officials wanted to know \u201cwhat other pretexts Putin has come up with to drag out the war and to pressure Ukraine.\u201d<\/p>\n

Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov praised Kushner as potentially playing an important role in ending Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine. Ushakov also took part in Tuesday\u2019s talks at the Kremlin.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf any plan leading to a settlement is put on paper, it will be the pen of Mr. Kushner that will lead the way,\u201d Ushakov said.<\/p>\n

The flattering comments about Kushner by the senior Russian official come as Putin has sought to sow division between Trump and Ukraine and Europe at a moment when Trump\u2019s impatience with the conflict is mounting. Putin said his five-hour talks this week<\/a> with Witkoff and Kushner were \u201cnecessary\u201d and \u201cuseful,\u201d but some proposals were unacceptable.<\/p>\n

Kushner, who is married to Trump\u2019s daughter Ivanka, was a senior adviser to Trump during his first term and was the president\u2019s point person on developing the Abraham Accords, which formalized commercial and diplomatic ties between Israel and a trio of Arab nations.<\/p>\n

Kushner has played a more informal role in Trump\u2019s second go-around, but he helped Witkoff close out ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas this fall. Trump tapped Kushner again to pair up with Witkoff to try to find an endgame to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The European take on the peace talks<\/p>\n

Ushakov, who accompanied Putin on a visit to India on Friday<\/a>, repeated the Russian president\u2019s recent criticism of Europe\u2019s stance<\/a> on the peace talks. Kyiv\u2019s European allies are concerned about possible Russian aggression<\/a> beyond Ukraine and want a prospective peace deal to include strong security guarantees.<\/p>\n

Kyiv\u2019s allies in Europe are \u201cconstantly putting forward demands that are unacceptable to Moscow,\u201d Ushakov told Russia\u2019s state-owned Zvezda TV. \u201cPutting it mildly, the Europeans don\u2019t help Washington and Moscow reach a settlement on the Ukrainian issues.\u201d<\/p>\n

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday that he made progress during a visit to Beijing<\/a> on getting Chinese leader Xi Jinping\u2019s support for peace efforts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe exchanged deeply and truthfully on all points, and I saw a willingness from the (Chinese) president to contribute to stability and peace,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n

The French president said he stressed that Ukraine needs guarantees that Russia won\u2019t attack it again if a settlement is reached and that Europe must have a voice in negotiations.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian issue is essential. And I say it, repeat it, emphasize it. We need to work together,\u201d Macron said.<\/p>\n

The latest drone attacks<\/p>\n

Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and an oil refinery.<\/p>\n

The Russian attack on Thursday night in Ukraine\u2019s central Dnipropetrovsk region destroyed the house where the boy was killed and also two women were injured, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.<\/p>\n

The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 137 drones of various types during the night.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian drones attacked a port and an oil refinery inside Russia overnight as part of Kyiv\u2019s campaign to disrupt Russian logistics, Ukraine\u2019s general staff said.<\/p>\n

The drones struck Temriuk sea port in Russia\u2019s Krasnodar region and the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region, starting blazes, a statement said. Syzran is about 800 kilometers (500 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The Russian Defense Ministry said only that its air defenses intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine. John Leicester in Paris and Matthew Lee in Washington contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Follow AP\u2019s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/russia-ukraine<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 President Donald Trump\u2019s advisers and Ukrainian officials say they\u2019ll meet for a third day of…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":427600,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,3],"tags":[198949,7838,69,8703,440,723,57,17966,37593,50,151824,80,3658,3657,13226,273,3660,67,370,132,68,274,3656,96,107,11762,77429],"class_list":{"0":"post-427599","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"category-us","9":"tag-andriy-hnatov","10":"tag-diplomacy","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-emmanuel-macron","13":"tag-europe","14":"tag-florida","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-jared-kushner","17":"tag-kyiv","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-pavel-zarubin","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-russia-government","22":"tag-russia-ukraine-war","23":"tag-steve-witkoff","24":"tag-ukraine","25":"tag-ukraine-government","26":"tag-united-states","27":"tag-united-states-government","28":"tag-unitedstates","29":"tag-us","30":"tag-vladimir-putin","31":"tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy","32":"tag-war-and-unrest","33":"tag-world-news","34":"tag-xi-jinping","35":"tag-yuri-ushakov"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427599","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427599"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427599\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427599"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427599"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427599"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}