President Donald Trump's envoys will meet Ukrainian and European officials in Miami to discuss "new ideas" and seek a unified proposal to end the war with Russia, two US sources told AFP news agency.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the talks scheduled to take place on Friday after a day in which a reported Russian strike on buses killed 30 people in the frontline city of Kramatorsk, one of the deadliest attacks in weeks.
"The Ukrainian negotiating team is due to meet Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the US tomorrow," Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
"The meeting is expected to last two days. We are also counting on a European team to join our negotiating group."
Zelenskyy said his chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, as well as Ukraine's top officials: Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kyslytsya and David Arakhamia will take part in the talks in Florida.
The US-led peace efforts to end the Ukraine war have been largely stalled, with Washington focused on its war with Iran despite Kiev saying Russia has ramped up aerial attacks.
But US officials said they were making a fresh effort in an enlarged format, following visits to Moscow and Kiev by last month by Witkoff, Trump's business friend-turned-roving envoy, and the president's son-in-law Kushner.
"They will discuss new ideas and proposals that American negotiators began developing with the Russians and Ukrainians during their recent visit to the region," one of the US sources familiar with the talks told AFP.
"The American negotiators also invited national security advisors from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, as well as officials from NATO and the European Union."
Energy costs
US officials said the envoys would discuss "security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war prosperity plan, and other aspects of the conflict."
They added that the Europeans had expressed "frustrations" to Washington about energy costs — which Trump has blamed on Ukrainian attacks on Russian diesel refineries, rather than his Iran war.
"They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop," the US source said.
"So, the United States is trying to mediate with the sides with the goal of creating a unified proposal."
Zelenskyy said last week that the United States wanted to revive peace efforts by trying to broker a new round of talks with Ukraine and Russia and hold it by the end of October.
The Kremlin said last month that three-way talks on ending the war could take place in October.
Previous rounds of talks have failed to yield tangible progress towards peace, with Moscow unwilling to drop its maximalist conditions to end the fighting.
Trump said earlier this week that he had a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although it was expected to focus on the reported death of a researcher at a Russian plague lab.
In a sign that Ukraine was under discussion, Witkoff was seen by AFP reporters traveling with Trump on Air Force One on Wednesday on a campaign trip to Texas for the US midterm elections.
