Rubio sees progress in Florida talks with Ukraine, but more work needed to reach agreement

(Patria) - American and Ukrainian officials on Sunday held what both sides called productive talks on a peace agreement with Russia, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressed optimism about progress despite challenges in ending the war that has lasted more than three years.

"We continue to be realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, especially given the fact that, as we have made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that it is not just about ending the war... but about securing Ukraine's future, a future we hope will be more prosperous than ever before," Rubio said in Florida, as reported by Reuters.

Rubio said the goal is to create a path that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent. The talks follow roughly two weeks of negotiations that began with an American plan for peace. Critics have said the plan initially favored Russia, which started the conflict in Ukraine with an invasion in 2022.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner were also present as representatives of the American side. Witkoff is expected to meet with his Russian counterparts later this week.

"There are many moving parts and obviously there is another side involved here that will have to be part of the equation, and that will continue later this week, when Mr. Witkoff travels to Moscow," Rubio said.

Trump has expressed frustration at not being able to end the war. As a presidential candidate, he promised to do so in one day and said he was surprised it was so difficult, given what he calls a good relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has largely resisted concessions to stop the fighting.
Trump's team has pressured Ukraine to make significant concessions to Russia on its own, including giving up territory.

The negotiations changed on Sunday with a change in leadership on the Ukrainian side. The new chief negotiator, Secretary of the National Security Council Rustem Umerov, led the talks for Kyiv after the resignation on Friday of the previous team leader Andriy Yermak, head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, amid a corruption scandal in the country.

At the start of the meeting, Umerov thanked the United States and its officials for their support.

"The U.S. listens to us, the U.S. supports us, the U.S. walks beside us," Umerov said in English.

After the meeting, he declared the talks productive.

"We discussed all the important issues that matter to Ukraine, to the Ukrainian people, and the U.S. was extremely supportive."

Sunday's talks were held near Miami at the private Shell Bay club, developed by Witkoff's real estate agency.

Zelenskyy said he expected the results of previous meetings in Geneva to be "agreed upon" on Sunday. In Geneva, Ukraine presented a counter-proposal to proposals put forward by U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv about two weeks ago.
Ukraine's leadership, faced with a domestic political crisis sparked by an investigation into large-scale corruption in the energy sector, is seeking to counter conditions favorable to Moscow as Russian forces advance along the war's front lines.

Last week, Zelenskyy warned Ukrainians, who are facing widespread power outages caused by Russian airstrikes on the energy system, that his country is in its most difficult moment yet, but promised not to make a bad deal.

"As a meteorologist would say, there is an inherent difficulty in forecasting because the atmosphere is a chaotic system where small changes can lead to large consequences," wrote Kyiv's First Deputy Foreign Minister Sergiy Kyslytsya, also part of the delegation, on social media platform X yesterday from Miami.