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The Kremlin on Sunday denied that three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States were being prepared, as diplomats gathered in Miami for negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Washington had proposed a trilateral format that would mark the first face-to-face talks between Moscow and Kyiv in nearly six months, though he expressed skepticism about the prospects for progress.
“At present, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and to my knowledge, it is not in preparation,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters, according to Russian news agencies.
After disclosing the U.S. proposal, Zelenskyy told journalists on Saturday that he was “not sure that anything new could come of it,” urging Washington to increase pressure on Russia to end the conflict.
On Sunday, however, Zelenskyy struck a more optimistic tone, saying that “constructive” talks between United States, European and Ukrainian negotiators were “moving at a fairly rapid pace,” while warning that progress depends on Moscow’s intentions.
“Much depends on whether Russia feels the need to end the war for real,” Zelenskyy said.
“Unfortunately, the real signals coming from Russia remain only negative: assaults along the frontline, Russian war crimes in border areas, and continued strikes against our infrastructure,” he added in a post on X.
Earlier, Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev told Russian journalists that his discussions with U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and the U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and informal adviser Jared Kushner were proceeding “constructively” and would continue over the weekend.
The Miami meetings followed talks held last weekend and earlier this week in Berlin between Witkoff, Kushner, and Ukrainian and European officials.
Separately, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, Rustem Umerov, said on X that he and Ukrainian Chief of the General Staff Andrii Hnatov would begin another round of consultations with U.S. officials on Friday.
Dmitriev arrived in Miami on Saturday, where Ukrainian and European delegations have also been gathering since Friday for negotiations mediated by Witkoff and Kushner.
Dmitriev “will return to Moscow, make his report, and we will discuss what to do next,” Ushakov said.
The Kremlin aide also said Sunday that he had “not seen” the revised U.S. proposal to end the war.
Washington last month presented a 28-point plan to end the conflict—a move that surprised Ukraine and its European allies and was widely seen as conceding to key Russian demands. The proposal was later redrafted following input from Kyiv and European capitals.
While details of the revised version remain unclear, Ukraine is expected to face pressure to surrender some territory in exchange for U.S. security guarantees—a prospect that has drawn strong opposition among Ukrainians.
Russian forces have continued to advance along the eastern front in recent months, with Putin on Friday praising territorial gains and warning of further advances in the coming weeks.
The last official direct talks between Ukrainian and Russian representatives took place in July in Istanbul, resulting in prisoner exchanges but little progress toward ending the fighting.
The presence of both Russian and European officials in Miami marks a shift from earlier U.S.-led efforts that involved separate negotiations with each side.
However, nearly four years of war—Europe’s bloodiest conflict since World War II—have cast doubt on the prospects for direct Ukraine-Russia negotiations. Moscow has argued that European involvement complicates the process.
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Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview published Sunday that Putin had expressed willingness to speak with French President Emmanuel Macron.
“Putin has ‘expressed readiness to engage in dialogue with Macron,’” Peskov told state news agency RIA Novosti.
“Therefore, if there is mutual political will, then this can only be assessed positively.”
Macron’s office said Putin’s remarks were “welcome” but stressed that any talks would be conducted “in full transparency” with Zelenskyy and European allies.
Zelenskyy said on X that over the past week, Russia launched “approximately 1,300 attack drones, nearly 1,200 guided aerial bombs, and 9 missiles of various types” against Ukraine, with the Odesa region and southern areas “hit particularly hard.”
Russia on Saturday claimed it captured two villages in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region and eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine, meanwhile, said it destroyed two Russian fighter jets in the occupied Crimean peninsula.
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