After ‘Productive’ Meeting With Ukrainian Negotiators in Florida, U.S. Officials Head to Russia
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Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner plan to travel to Moscow on Monday for more talks about a possible peace plan
By Deborah Acosta and Robbie Gramer, The Wall Street Journal,
Updated Nov. 30, 2025 6:19 pm ET
From left, the U.S. delegation of Steve Witkoff, Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner meeting with Ukrainian negotiators during Sunday’s talks in South Florida.CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP/GETTY IMAGES Quick Summary -- U.S. negotiators, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner, held productive talks with Ukrainian officials on Sunday. -- Discussions covered potential timetables for new elections in Ukraine and the prospect of land swaps between Russia and Ukraine. -- Key issues remain unresolved, such as U.S. and Western security guarantees for Ukraine and Russia’s demand for recognition of seized territories.
HALLANDALE BEACH, Fla.—U.S. and Ukrainian negotiators said Sunday’s meeting on ending the war with Russia—which included talks on possible elections, land swaps and security guarantees—was productive, and top U.S. envoys will head to Moscow on Monday for further discussions. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner met with Ukrainian counterparts for more than four hours. Rubio said they made progress, adding that the negotiations are complex. The talks covered possible timetables for new elections in Ukraine, and the prospect of land swaps between Russia and Ukraine, according to a senior U.S. official. Other crucial issues remain unresolved include the nature of U.S. and Western security guarantees for Ukraine and whether the Kremlin will continue to demand international recognition of the territories it has seized from Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion in 2022. “We don’t just want to end the war, we also want to help Ukraine be safe forever so never again will they face another invasion,” Rubio said after the meeting. “There’s more work to be done. This is delicate, it’s complicated, there are a lot of moving parts and obviously there’s another party involved here that’ll have to be a part of the equation.‘’ Kushner and Witkoff will fly to Russia on Monday to continue the talks, according to the U.S. official. Trump said on Sunday that Witkoff will likely meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin sometime next week. The Ukrainian delegation was led by Rustem Umerov, the secretary of the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine, in place of Andriy Yermak, one of Ukraine’s top officials who resigned amid a corruption scandal. “Our objective is a prosperous, strong Ukraine,” said Umerov, standing next to Rubio outside the negotiating room. “This meeting was productive and successful,” he said, without offering specifics. Neither took questions. Rustem Umerov, the chief Ukrainian negotiator, speaks with the U.S. delegation.AFP/Getty Images Sunday’s negotiations capped a whirlwind month of high-stakes diplomacy that began in Florida when Kushner and Witkoff met with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s handpicked negotiator, to hash out an initial 28-point peace plan. The three worked together to edit the proposal over multiple days in October at Witkoff’s waterfront home in Miami Beach, Fla. Trump has renewed his drive to end the war after months of failed negotiations and escalating Russian attacks on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and civilian targets. A day before the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations met in Florida, Russia bombarded Ukraine with a nearly 10-hour air assault with hundreds of missiles and drones that struck residential buildings and energy infrastructure. The Trump administration’s initial peace proposal, leaked in mid-November, alarmed Ukraine and its closest European allies for offering up concessions that were seen to heavily favor Russia, including caps on the size of Ukraine’s military but not Russia’s and a proposal to bar Ukraine from ever joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. When Umerov met with Witkoff and Kushner in Miami in October to review the initial proposed 28-point plan, he bluntly said the deal favored Russia over Ukraine. At the negotiating table on Sunday, inside Witkoff’s Shell Bay golf club in South Florida, Umerov voiced appreciation for the Trump administration’s efforts. “The U.S. is hearing us, U.S. is supporting us, U.S. is walking beside us,” he said. Over three years into the war, it is unclear whether Putin is willing to make concessions that would get both sides to agree to peace terms. At a news conference last week, the Russian leader said he was ready for “serious” discussions to end the war but reiterated demands that Ukraine must withdraw its troops from Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region—including areas of the region not controlled by Russia. “When Ukrainian troops leave the territories they hold, then the fighting will stop,” Putin said. “If they don’t, then we’ll achieve that through military means.” Ukraine has previously refused to accede to those demands, countering that any withdrawal from the region will leave it vulnerable to further Russian attacks. The discussions around land swaps as part of a peace deal have been particularly complicated. Russia and Ukraine would need to address the legality of territorial changes, because both their constitutions prohibit ceding territories without legal changes. But unlike in Russia, where Putin wields total control, the diplomatic and legal hurdles on the Ukrainian side are significantly more complicated. Any change to Ukraine’s borders would require a nationwide referendum. Ukraine’s wartime powers also freeze presidential and parliamentary elections. The prospect of holding new elections is a politically fraught issue in Ukraine amid the war and could open up Ukraine to election-interference campaigns from Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is under increased political pressure at home against the backdrop of the peace talks, as his government reels from the corruption scandal that pushed Yermak to resign. Write to Deborah Acosta at deborah.acosta@wsj.com and Robbie Gramer at robbie.gramer@wsj.com
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Analysis by Nick Paton Walsh , CNN Updated 9:19 PM EDT, March 18 Orig inal article contains additional links and illustrations . See also Thomas L. Friedman , I Don’t Believe a Single Word Trump and Putin Say About Ukraine, The New York Times , March 18; and also A “no” is not a “yes” when it is a “maybe,” a “probably not,” or an “only if.” This is the painfully predictable lesson the Trump administration’s first real foray into wartime diplomacy with the Kremlin has dealt. They’ve been hopelessly bluffed. They asked for a 30-day, frontline-wide ceasefire, without conditions. On Tuesday, they got – after a theatrical week-long wait and hundreds more lives lost – a relatively small prisoner swap, hockey matches, more talks, and – per the Kremlin readout – a month-long mutual pause on attacks against “energy infrastructure.” This last phrase is where an easily avoidable technical minefield begins. Per US President Donald Trump’s post and that of his ...
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