Russian envoy rejects U.S. trilateral peace-talk proposal in Miami, meets Kushner instead

MIAMI — Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev rejected the Trump administration’s proposal to hold trilateral peace talks with Ukraine in Miami, instead meeting privately with Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff and declining to engage Kyiv’s delegation, Reuters reported.

Washington had floated the idea of a three-way format that would include Russia, Ukraine and the United States, hoping to accelerate diplomacy after months of stalled discussions. Ukrainian officials offered only tepid openness, signaling they would not commit to concessions without ironclad U.S. security guarantees. A Ukrainian team sat for hours with Kushner and Witkoff on Friday, and Dmitriev’s decision to sidestep a direct meeting with Kyiv’s representatives underscored the fragility of the effort.

Zelensky said Saturday that a joint meeting would be logical after assessing the potential results of the talks that had already taken place, Politico reported. He cautioned, however, that there was little reason to expect a breakthrough from a first face-to-face session since the June talks in Istanbul yielded limited progress. In the Donetsk region, a Ukrainian serviceman fired a Bohdana self-propelled howitzer toward Russian troops from a frontline position near the town of Kostiantynivka, illustrating that the fighting persisted even as diplomacy was pursued.

U.S. officials stressed that there can be no peace agreement without Ukraine’s consent and that Washington would join negotiations if a trilateral framework materializes. On Friday, U.S. Senator and foreign-policy figure Marco Rubio said there would be no peace deal unless Kyiv agrees to it, and he indicated he could participate if a substantive format emerged. In parallel, the European Union extended a $105 billion loan to Ukraine to sustain its defense and civilian operations amid the conflict.

Kyiv has reiterated that it will not cede land Moscow has failed to seize and has pressed for ironclad U.S. security guarantees before any durable settlement. The discussion of trilateral talks has drawn Western attention, and the issue cropped up as European officials and allies continued to back Ukraine with financial and military support. In Berlin, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz greeted Kushner and Witkoff on December 15, 2025, signaling ongoing Western engagement with the issue as Moscow presses its campaign on the ground.

Analysts cautioned that Moscow’s willingness to participate in a meaningful peace process remains uncertain, and any revival of formal talks will depend on sequencing, guarantees and verification mechanisms. Kyiv’s conditions, along with the broader security assurances sought by Washington and European partners, will largely determine whether the United States, Russia and Ukraine can move from tentative discussions to tangible steps toward diplomacy. The conflict in Ukraine shows no immediate end gap, underscoring the complexity of aligning strategic incentives among the key players.