The American team is satisfied with the latest round of talks in Moscow and Kyiv and hopes to organise a trilateral meeting in the near future.
This was stated by US President’s special envoy Jared Kushner during a speech at the annual Yalta European Strategy meeting in Kyiv, Interfax-Ukraine reports “Interfax-Ukraine”.
He said the most difficult issue remains the territorial one, as the sides still do not share a common vision of the final outcome. This is also significantly influenced by the situation on the front line, where the course of events and technological developments are outpacing the expectations of both countries.
Kushner noted that talks with the Russian side helped to understand its position and the possible limits of flexibility, which gave impetus to new ideas. American diplomats consider joint meetings involving both sides far more effective than alternating consultations.
Trump’s special representative also said that Putin has already outlined the line he wants to reach. And if Ukraine agreed to pull back to that boundary, the rest of the agreement could be considered settled, but Ukraine is not doing so.
Kushner noted that the main task of the United States as a mediator is to find a solution that takes Ukraine’s interests into account, makes it possible to stop the war and guarantees that similar conflicts cannot occur in the future. Diplomats hope to announce the next steps and further decisions within the next few weeks.
- Recently, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Axios in an interview that US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner informed him in Kyiv of an alleged “readiness of Moscow for negotiations”.
- At the same time, the head of state believes that the visit by the American delegation was able to “unblock the talks” and will likely force Putin at least to discuss proposals for advancing the diplomatic process.
- Meanwhile, the White House is considering reducing Witkoff’s and Kushner’s involvement in the negotiations and instead giving a key role to CIA Director John Ratcliffe.