Ukrainian peace negotiators are en route to the United States and plan to meet with the U.S. negotiating team on Friday and Saturday, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
Zelenskyy told reporters in a WhatsApp media chat that there were no final aligned peace proposals for now, reiterating his plea to partners to strengthen Ukraine in case Russia refuses to stop its war.
A White House official, meanwhile, confirmed to NBC News that the U.S. and Russia will hold talks in Miami this coming weekend. The talks were first reported by Politico.
The Kremlin said Thursday that Russia was preparing for contact with the U.S. to get details about U.S. talks with European powers and Ukraine on a possible peace settlement.
“We are indeed preparing certain contacts with our American counterparts in order to receive information about the results of the work that the Americans have done with the Europeans and with Ukraine,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters when asked about a possible meeting in Miami.
The U.S. has held rounds of talks with Russia, and separately with Kyiv and European leaders, on proposals for ending the war in Ukraine but no deal has been reached.
Putin said Wednesday that Russia would take more land in Ukraine by force if Kyiv and European politicians, whom he cast as “piglets” or "swine," did not engage over U.S. proposals for a peace settlement.
European leaders say they stand with Kyiv and that if Russia wins in Ukraine, Moscow will one day attack a NATO member. The Kremlin has repeatedly dismissed claims that Russia would attack a NATO member as nonsense.
Russia controls 19.2% of Ukraine, including the Crimea peninsula which it annexed in 2014, as well as most of the eastern Donbas region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions and slivers of four other regions.
