Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a two-hour phone call on Saturday with Donald Trump's advisors Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss territorial disputes and security guarantees, Axios reports, citing two sources familiar with the conversation.
The call capped three days of marathon negotiations in Miami between senior US and Ukrainian officials regarding President Trump's peace plan. The discussion followed a five-hour meeting between Witkoff, Kushner, and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday.
According to the report, Witkoff and Kushner have collated the positions of both sides and pressured both Putin and Zelenskyy to make the concessions necessary to reach a deal.
Zelenskyy joined the meeting via telephone. The US was represented by Kushner and Witkoff, while Ukraine was represented by National Security Advisor Rustem Umerov and Chief of Staff Andrii Hnatov.
The territorial issue proved challenging, the source noted. Russia continues to demand that Ukraine withdraw from the parts of the Donbas it still controls, while the US is attempting to develop new concepts to bridge this gap.
On the matter of US security guarantees for Ukraine, the parties have made significant progress and edged closer to an agreement, though further work is required to ensure both sides share a common interpretation of the draft.
"The main complex issues concern territorial matters and security guarantees. We aim to ensure that the agreed solutions are realistic, fair, and sustainable," Ukraine's Ambassador to Washington, Olha Stefanishyna, told Axios.
Writing on X after the call, Zelenskyy described the discussion as "very focused" and "constructive."
"We went through key points that could ensure an end to the bloodshed and eliminate the threat of a new full-scale Russian invasion, as well as the risk of Russia reneging on its promises, as has happened repeatedly in the past," Zelenskyy wrote.
Umerov and Hnatov are set to return from Miami to Europe to brief Zelenskyy in London on Monday regarding the US proposals.
"We need to take all the draft documents and brainstorm," a Ukrainian official told Axios.
Further negotiations and meetings with Witkoff and Kushner are expected later this week.
Negotiations on a peace settlement for the war in Ukraine have gained momentum in recent weeks. According to The Wall Street Journal, key decisions are being made by a tight circle — Trump's special envoy Steve Witkoff, his son-in-law Jared Kushner, and the head of Russia's sovereign wealth fund, Kirill Dmitriev. They are discussing not only a plan to end the war but also large-scale commercial projects between the US and Russia. Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk summed up the European reaction to these talks: "We know this is not about peace. This is about business."
Trump's initial 28-point plan, drafted without input from Ukraine or Europe, was whittled down to 19 points following talks in Geneva. Analyst Yuriy Romanenko, analyzing the architecture of the peace plan, compares the current situation to the fate of Czechoslovakia in 1938, when the country's leadership awaited a decision on its fate while the great powers struck a deal in Munich. He assesses that the sticking points remain territory, the size of the Ukrainian military, and security guarantees.
Following the five-hour meeting between Witkoff, Kushner, and Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, the Russian side stated that "no compromises have been found yet." Zelenskyy confirmed later that day he was ready to meet with Trump depending on the outcome of the Moscow talks, noting that Ukrainian and US officials had outlined 20 points of a peace plan during consultations in Geneva and Florida.
