Trump advisers and Ukrainian officials will meet for third day amid progress on peace plan | US news

Donald Trump’s advisers and Ukrainian officials announced Friday they would meet for a third day of negotiations after making progress in creating a security framework for postwar Ukraine and urged Russia to commit to peace.

The officials, who met for a second day in Florida on Friday, issued a joint statement that gave a broad overview of the progress they say has been made as Trump pushes kyiv and Moscow to accept a U.S.-brokered proposal to end nearly four years of war.

“Both sides agreed that real progress toward an agreement depends on Russia’s willingness to demonstrate a serious commitment to long-term peace, including measures aimed at de-escalation and cessation of massacres,” the statement said. “The parties also separately reviewed the Future Prosperity Agenda that aims to support Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction, joint U.S.-Ukraine economic initiatives, and long-term recovery projects.”

The talks in Florida between US special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner with Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s top negotiator, follow talks between Vladimir Putin and US envoys to the Kremlin on Tuesday.

Friday’s session took place at the Shell Bay Club in Hallandale Beach, Fla., a private, high-end golf and lifestyle destination owned by Witkoff’s real estate development company.

Previous diplomatic attempts to break the deadlock have gone nowhere and the war, which has lasted for almost four years, continues unabated. Officials have largely kept secret how the latest negotiations have gone, although Trump’s initial 28-point plan has been leaked.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, said his country’s delegation in Florida wanted to hear from the American side on the Kremlin negotiations.

Zelensky, along with European leaders who support him, have repeatedly accused Putin of blocking peace talks as the Russian military tries to press ahead with its invasion. Zelensky said in a video address Thursday that officials wanted to know “what other pretexts Putin has found to prolong the war and put pressure on Ukraine.”

Speaking to Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin on Friday, Kremlin foreign affairs adviser Yuri Ushakov praised Kushner’s potential role in ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Ushakov also took part in Tuesday’s talks in the Kremlin.

“If a plan leading to a settlement is put on paper, it will be Mr. Kushner’s pen that will lead the way,” Ushakov said.

The senior Russian official’s flattering comments about Kushner come as Putin seeks to sow division between Trump, Ukraine and Europe, at a time when Trump’s impatience with the conflict is growing. Putin said his five-hour talks this week with Witkoff and Kushner were “necessary” and “useful,” but that some proposals were unacceptable.

Kushner, married to Trump’s daughter Ivanka, served as a senior adviser to Trump during his first term and responsible for developing the Abraham Accords, which formalized trade and diplomatic relations between Israel and a trio of Arab countries.

Kushner played a more informal role in Trump’s second go-around, but he helped Witkoff close ceasefire and hostage negotiations between Israel and Hamas this fall. Trump again asked Kushner to team up with Witkoff to try to find an endgame to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Ushakov, who accompanied Putin on a visit to India on Friday, reiterated the Russian president’s recent criticism of Europe’s position in peace talks. kyiv’s European allies are concerned about possible Russian aggression beyond Ukraine and want a possible peace deal to include strong security guarantees.

kyiv’s allies in Europe “constantly present demands that are unacceptable for Moscow,” Ushakov told Russian state television Zvezda. “To put it mildly: the Europeans are not helping Washington and Moscow reach a settlement on the Ukrainian issues.”

French President Emmanuel Macron said Friday he had made progress during a visit to Beijing to secure Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s support for peace efforts.

“We discussed deeply and sincerely on all points, and I saw a desire on the part of the [Chinese] president to contribute to stability and peace,” Macron said.

The French president stressed that Ukraine needed guarantees that Russia would not attack it again if a settlement was reached and that Europe must have a voice in the negotiations.

“Unity between Americans and Europeans on the Ukrainian question is essential. And I say it, I repeat it, I emphasize it. We must work together,” Macron said.

Russian drones struck a house in central Ukraine on Thursday evening, killing a 12-year-old boy, officials said, while long-range Ukrainian strikes reportedly targeted a Russian port and oil refinery.

The Russian attack in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region destroyed the house where the boy was killed and also injured two women, according to the head of the regional military administration, Vladyslav Haivanenko.

The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia fired 137 drones of different types overnight.

Ukrainian drones attacked a Russian port and oil refinery overnight as part of kyiv’s campaign to disrupt Russian logistics, Ukraine’s General Staff said.

The drones struck the Temryuk seaport in Russia’s Krasnodar region and the Syzran oil refinery in the Samara region, sparking fires, according to a statement. Syzran is about 800 km east of the border with Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said only that its air defenses intercepted 85 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed in 2014.