Zelenskyy sends chief negotiator to US for fresh peace talks

KYIV — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has dispatched Kyiv’s chief negotiator to meet with Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in the U.S., a top Ukrainian official told POLITICO.

Details are sketchy so far on the trip by Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov, which comes as the Moscow-Kyiv peace negotiations mediated by Washington appear to have hit a wall.

Umerov left Ukraine for the U.S. on Wednesday, said the official, granted anonymity to discuss nonpublic arrangements. “He will meet representatives of the U.S. president to discuss diplomatic and security issues,” the official said, referring to U.S. special envoy Witkoff and Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.

The White House has issued no information on the potential meeting.

Although officials in Kyiv insist they have been in regular contact with the American side, Zelenskyy has admitted that the U.S. has shifted focus from Ukraine to Iran and that this has weakened pressure on Russia. “The problem is that the priority for the United States has now shifted to the Middle East,” Zelenskyy told Newsmax last week.

As a result, “Russia will not feel the most important thing that America can give us — pressure on them,” Zelenskyy said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is still demanding Ukraine withdraw from the Donbas region, while Kyiv keeps insisting the war can be settled along the current contact line. Zelenskyy is adamant that Kyiv will never give up territories, especially ones Moscow has not managed to seize by military means.

Kyiv has been expecting Kushner and Witkoff to come to Ukraine for months, with Zelenskyy visibly losing his temper as Witkoff has visited Moscow eight times since the start of U.S.-led negotiations last year, while meeting Kyiv officials only in the U.S. or elsewhere outside of Ukraine.

“We are in contact with them. But I think they need this visit [to Kyiv] more than we do,” Zelenskyy said last month. “Why? It’s not very respectful to go to Moscow and not come to Kyiv. It’s just disrespectful,” the Ukrainian leader said.

During the last three months, Ukraine has faced a hard choice: to take the peace treaty as it is currently being presented, or to keep fighting, perhaps for years, another person familiar with the matter told POLITICO last month. So far Kyiv has decided to keep fighting.

“Witkoff and Kushner’s visit planned for Easter was supposed to be an ultimatum,” the person said. “The plan was trivial. There was an Easter POWs exchange. They were supposed to come to the media and say, ‘Hey, we got you a one-day truce and this miracle. It can last longer if you sign a treaty,’” the person said.

“They knew Zelenskyy would decline the public ultimatum, and that would be an opportunity for them to leave the whole thing. Russia’s interest in negotiations has also declined. If, earlier, Ukrainians could pass the list of certain POWs they wanted to get to the U.S., and the Kremlin would release those, nowadays this has largely stopped working,” the person added.

Source: www.politico.eu