A meeting between the Ukrainian and American delegations took place in Florida – the first after a long pause associated with the outbreak of war in the Middle East.
The head of the Ukrainian delegation, Rustam Omerov, wrote: “We continued to discuss the main issues and additional steps within the framework of the negotiation process. Particular attention was paid to coordinating methods to achieve further progress towards practical results.”
Vladimir Zelensky in the evening speech on March 21 male“The teams will continue communicating tomorrow.” “The most important thing is to understand how prepared the Russian side is to put a real end to the war and how prepared they are to do it with honesty and dignity,” Zelensky said. “Especially now, when geopolitical problems have been exacerbated by the Iranian situation.”
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff maleThe parties “held constructive meetings” focused on “narrowing the scope of issues” and “resolving remaining issues” to move closer to a peace agreement.
The Ukrainian delegation included the leader of the Servant of the People presidential faction, David Arakhamiya, the head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, Kirill Budanov, and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Kislitsa. On the American side, in addition to Witkoff, there were the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, senior White House advisor Josh Gruenbaum, and senior State Department advisor Chris Curran.
The last round of trilateral negotiations between Russia, Ukraine and the United States was held in Geneva on February 17-18. The two parties were expected to meet next in early March in Abu Dhabi, but on February 28, the United States and Israel began a war against Iran, which also affected the Gulf states. After that, the tripartite negotiations stopped. According to Zelensky, the American side said that it was ready to meet in America only, because the war in the Middle East prevents them from leaving their country’s territory.
On March 19, Vladimir Zelensky said that “there are signals from the American side about their readiness to continue working in the current negotiation formats” and “it is time to end the deadlock in negotiations.” At the same time, a meeting of representatives of Ukraine and the United States was announced on March 21.