US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will not participate in the next round of negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday.
“[Russia and Ukraine] are going to follow up talks again this week. In that regard, bilateral. There might be a US presence, but it won’t be Steve and Jared,” Rubio said.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations met last Friday and Saturday in Abu Dhabi in their first in-person negotiations on a plan being driven by US President Donald Trump to end the war.
Ukraine’s team was headed by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, a seasoned negotiator in talks with Moscow, alongside Presidential Office chief and former intelligence head Kyrylo Budanov, lawmaker and negotiator David Arakhamia, and Chief of the General Staff Andriy Hnatov, among others.
Russia was represented by a delegation led by Igor Kostyukov, the head of the GRU, Russia’s military intelligence service. Investigative outlet Agentstvo reported that Alexander Zorin, the GRU’s first deputy head for information, also took part in the talks.
A third round of negotiations is expected to take place later this week. President Volodymyr Zelensky has characterized the previous discussions as “constructive,” while Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said there remained “significant work ahead.”
Rubio also told lawmakers on Wednesday that the future status of Donetsk remains the principal obstacle to reaching a peace agreement between Kyiv and Moscow.
“The one remaining item… is the territorial claim on Donetsk. There is active work going to try to see if both sides’ views on this can be reconciled,” Rubio said.
“It’s still a bridge we haven’t crossed. It’s still a gap, but at least we’ve been able to narrow down the issue set to one central one, and it will probably be a very difficult one.”
Rubio pointed out that the issue would be “very difficult,” especially for Ukraine.
“It’s easier for the parties engaged to find flexibility on some of these matters if they’re not being deliberated in the public on a constant basis, because it creates political pressures internally on both sides, as you can imagine in Ukraine, the notion that you would even consider a change in land,” Rubio said.
Trump on Tuesday told reporters that “very good things are happening on Ukraine and Russia,” without elaborating.
President Donald Trump said Tuesday that “very good things are happening on Ukraine and Russia,” without providing further details.
Also on Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that the Trump administration has signaled to Ukrainian officials that US security guarantees would be conditioned on Kyiv first agreeing to a peace settlement that would likely require ceding the Donbas region to Russia.
Ukraine, according to the report, wants firm assurances of US security commitments before conceding any territory. Washington, however, believes relinquishing the Donbas is necessary to end the war and has applied scant pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin to retreat from one of his most uncompromising demands, sources told the outlet.