By Gleb Bryanski
MOSCOW, Dec 20 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin’s special envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, is heading to Miami for a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a Russian source told Reuters.
The meeting in Miami takes place after talks in Berlin with Ukrainian and European officials held by Witkoff and Kushner earlier this week to try to reach a deal to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. The duo were also scheduled to meet Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov in Miami on Friday.
The Russian source said that any meeting between Dmitriev and the Ukrainian negotiators had been ruled out.
“Three-way contacts with the Ukrainian side are not planned,” said the Russian source with the direct knowledge of the visit, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Trump’s administration is pushing to bring an end to nearly four years of war, but bridging the positions of Russia, Ukraine, and European Union leaders on issues such as Ukraine’s NATO membership and territorial concessions has not been easy.
Witkoff and Kushner have been working with EU and Ukrainian negotiators on an amended version of a peace plan, earlier drafts of which were criticized by the EU and Ukraine as being slanted toward Russia.
The Kremlin said on December 12 that it had not yet seen the latest version of the plan, amended with Ukrainian and European proposals.
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who will not travel to the U.S. over the weekend, said at the time that Moscow may not like some of those proposals.
The Kremlin had reiterated that Ukraine not joining the NATO military alliance was a fundamental condition of the talks.
Ushakov also said that a ceasefire in Ukraine would only be possible after Kyiv’s forces withdraw from the entire Donbas region, suggesting that the Russian army could stay away from areas currently controlled by Ukraine.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said this week that Russia’s opposition to the deployment of European troops to Ukraine, offered as a security guarantee from the West under a possible future U.S.-brokered peace deal, is well known, but that the issue could be discussed.
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; editing by Diane Craft and Rosalba O’Brien)
Comments