Top US officials met with a Russian delegation in Miami for the latest round of Ukraine peace talks Saturday, despite the Trump administration failing to bring the warring countries to the table for a face-to-face session.
Moscow envoy Kirill Dmitriev flew to the US to meet with President Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US envoy Steve Witkoff in the Sunshine State, but refused to engage his Ukrainian counterpart, Reuters reported.
The US had previously floated the idea of trilateral talks with Russia and Ukraine over the weekend, which was met with tepid consent from Ukrainian officials on Friday.
Ukrainian serviceman fires a Bohdana self-propelled howitzer towards Russian troops from a position on a front line, amid Russia’s attack near the town of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 29, 2025 REUTERSA Ukrainian team sat for hours with Kushner and Witkoff Friday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Saturday that it would be “logical to hold such a joint meeting … after we understand the potential results of the meeting that has already taken place,” Politico reported.
But the Ukrainian leader was skeptical that anything substantial would result from the adversaries sitting down for the first time since a June session in Turkey, which yielded little progress.
“I’m not sure something new would come of that. We already had such a format of meetings in Istanbul,” Zelensky told journalists in a WhastApp chat, according to the outlet.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz (R) greets the US President’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and US special envoy Steve Witkoff (C) upon their arrival on December 15, 2025 at the Chancellery in Berlin, Germany. AFP via Getty Images
Emergency responders work at the site of a warehouse that was destroyed in Novi Petrivtsi, outside Kyiv, on Dec. 6. REUTERS
Emergency first responders in the midst of a shelled out structure on Dec. 6. REUTERSUS Secretary of State Marco Rubio assured Friday that “there’s no peace deal unless Ukraine agrees to it,” adding that he could join trilateral talks between Russia and Ukraine if they materialize.
Kyiv has maintained that it will not cede land that Moscow’s forces have failed to capture during Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine — and remains committed to requiring ironclad US security guarantees.
Meanwhile, the European Union extended a $105 billion loan Friday to Ukraine to continue the fight against Russia.
