The Kremlin on Sunday denied that three-way talks involving Ukraine, Russia and the United States were under discussion, as diplomats gathered in Miami for negotiations aimed at ending the war.
A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Washington had floated the idea of trilateral talks, which would mark the first face-to-face negotiations between Russian and Ukrainian officials in six months. Zelensky expressed skepticism, however, that such a format would yield progress.
“At present, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and to my knowledge it is not being prepared,” Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yury Ushakov told reporters, according to Russian news agencies.
Ushakov also said he had not seen a revised U.S. proposal to end the conflict following earlier talks between American, Ukrainian and European diplomats.
Vladimir Putin’s economic envoy Kirill Dmitriev arrived in Miami on Saturday, where Ukrainian and European delegations have been gathering since Friday for talks mediated by the White House special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law.
Ushakov said Dmitriev would soon return to Moscow to brief officials on the discussions.
The last direct negotiations between Ukrainian and Russian officials took place in July in Istanbul, leading to major prisoner exchanges but little progress toward ending the full-scale invasion, now approaching its fourth anniversary.
While the presence of both Russian and European representatives in Miami marks a shift from earlier rounds of shuttle diplomacy, deep mistrust between the two warring sides has cast doubt on the prospects for direct talks.
Moscow has argued that European involvement complicates negotiations, though the Kremlin said on Sunday that Putin was open to speaking with French President Emmanuel Macron. In response, Macron’s office said the statement was “welcome.”
Separately, Zelensky wrote on social media that Russia had launched about 1,300 drones, nearly 1,200 guided aerial bombs and nine missiles at Ukraine over the past week, with southern regions, including Odesa, “hit particularly hard.”
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