Ukrainian negotiators are heading to the US on Friday for high-stakes talks with US officials – a move Kyiv Post sources say was pulled forward from the original schedule to accommodate US envoy Steve Witkoff’s packed agenda.
Top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov, alongside Lieutenant General Andriy Hnatov, will lead Kyiv’s delegation.
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“At the invitation of the American side, European partners are also involved in this format,” Umerov wrote on social media.
The meeting comes as part of a tightly choreographed series of talks in Miami as the White House pushes for a breakthrough in peace talks before Russia’s invasion reaches its four-year mark.
According to Kyiv Post sources, the Ukraine session was moved ahead of planned talks with Kremlin-linked figures due to Witkoff’s schedule, as he is set to host a Middle East meeting later on Friday.
Under the plan, US officials are expected to meet Kirill Dmitriev, head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, alongside Trump’s son-in-law and informal power broker Jared Kushner.
Ukrainian officials are set to meet Witkoff separately, a sequence highlighting Washington’s insistence on acting as the sole intermediary and fueling European fears of being sidelined.
It remains unclear whether US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, also in Miami this weekend, will meet either delegation. Trump will remain in Florida through January, leaving the president’s direct engagement uncertain.
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Miami has become the administration’s testing ground: to either push a US-drafted peace framework into play or confront the reality that a year of diplomacy has produced little.
The framework, quietly circulated in Berlin earlier this week, will be measured against Moscow’s appetite for compromise.
Trump signaled urgency while casting himself as a dealmaker.
“They’re getting close to something,” he said Thursday. But he also warned Kyiv: Move quickly, or Moscow may walk – a familiar tactic to pressure Ukraine into rapid decisions.
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