WASHINGTON — Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will brief Ukraine’s lead negotiator on Thursday in Miami after Russian dictator Vladimir Putin on Tuesday rejected the latest 19-point peace plan hammered out with Kyiv officials in Geneva last week.
The US officials invited Kyiv’s national security advisor Rustem Umerov to Florida for discussions after leaving their Tuesday meeting with Putin at the Kremlin without an agreement in hand, a senior US official told The Post on Wednesday, noting that Umerov accepted the invitation.
Witkoff and Kushner will go over the latest Russian demands discussed in their five-hour Moscow meeting and seek to make progress on sealing a deal to end the war.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov on Tuesday claimed the Russians and Americans discussed four different versions of a peace plan — none of which included the Moscow-leaning 28-point plan initially reported by Axios.
Despite those marathon discussions, Ushakov said that “no compromise option has yet been found.”
“Some of the American proposals appear more or less acceptable. They do, nevertheless, require further discussion,” Ushakov told reporters at the Kremlin. “Certain wording we have been offered is not suitable for us.”
“In other words, the work will continue. This is indeed one of the most crucial issues.”
Thursday’s US-Ukraine meeting comes after timing didn’t work out for Witkoff and Kushner to stop in Europe to brief Zelensky before returning to DC from Moscow.
Prior to the Kremlin visit, the Ukrainian and US officials had discussed a possible meet-up to debrief on their way home, but that had changed by the time negotiations ended Tuesday.
“They did not promise us that they would travel to Kiev; they promised that they would go back home, to Washington, where they belong. Something like that,” Ushakov told Russian reporters.
Asked whether Russia influenced Kushner and Witkoff’s decision not to stop first to debrief Zelensky, the senior US official said the meeting was unconfirmed and “ultimately, it was not feasible with timing.”
“Special Envoy Witkoff and Mr. Kushner have briefed President Trump and the Ukrainians since their meeting with the Russians,” the official said.
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