Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky has given a positive assessment of a conversation he had with US envoys on how to end the Russia-Ukraine war.
Zelensky said Thursday’s call with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which lasted nearly an hour, had yielded “new ideas in terms of formats, meetings, and… timing on how to bring a real peace closer”. He added later that he would hold another meeting with President Donald Trump “in the near future”.
Earlier this week Zelensky gave details of an updated 20-point peace plan, agreed by US and Ukrainian envoys in Florida.
The Kremlin said it was analysing proposals brought back from the US by a Russian envoy.
Trump and his envoys have been holding talks with both Ukraine and Russia in an effort to reach a deal to end the war which was started by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
There appears to have been some progress in recent days with Ukraine’s president praising the “good ideas” put forward by Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Kushner.
Zelensky said it had been an “active day” for his country’s diplomacy, as he went into details with the US envoys.
He conceded that there was still “work to be done on sensitive issues” but added that “together with the American team, we understand how to put all of this in place”.
Zelensky added that Ukraine’s top negotiator Rustem Umerov, the country’s top security official, “will continue discussions with the American team”.
The 20-point peace plan agreed by the US and Ukraine is seen as an update to the initial draft prepared by Witkoff several weeks ago.
That draft was widely seen as heavily geared towards Russia’s maximalist pre-invasion demands, which Kyiv and its European allies said would mean the de facto capitulation of Ukraine.
Describing the updated proposal on Wednesday, Zelensky had said it offered Russia the potential withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the east and the creation of a demilitarised zone in their place.
He said the plan now included security guarantees from the US, Nato and Europeans for a co-ordinated military response if Russia invaded Ukraine again.
On the key question of Ukraine’s industrial eastern Donetsk region, Zelensky said a “free economic zone” was a potential option. Any area that Ukrainian troops pulled out of would have to be policed by Ukraine, he stressed.
