Trump envoys meet Ukraine officials in Miami for peace talks

Published: 08:35 EDT, 9 October 2026 | Updated: 08:35 EDT, 9 October 2026

Donald Trump’s envoys for Ukraine, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, will meet representatives from Kyiv in Miami Friday and try to forge a unified peace proposal. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the talks after a day in which a Russian strike on buses in the frontline city of Kramatorsk killed 30 people, one of the deadliest attacks in weeks. ‘The Ukrainian negotiating team is due to meet Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the US tomorrow,’ Zelensky said Thursday. ‘The meeting is expected to last two days. We are also counting on a European team to join our negotiating group.’ Earlier on Thursday, Secretary of State ​Marco Rubio said the conflict was at a ‘dangerous stalemate.’ Following the plague death in a lab in Siberia, Trump said he planned to talk to his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin by phone. Trump, whose efforts to resolve the conflict ​have so far not succeeded, has been trying to arrange trilateral talks ​between Russia, the US and Ukraine.

A source told Reuters that Witkoff and Kushner would hold a working session with the Ukrainians to discuss ‘new ideas and proposals that American negotiators began developing ​with the Russians and Ukrainians during their recent visit to the ​region’. The meeting will include representatives from the White House National Security Council and US Treasury ‌Department, ⁠the source said. Zelensky said his chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, as well as Ukraine’s top officials: Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kyslytsya and David Arakhamia will take part in the talks in Florida. The American negotiators also invited national security advisors from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, as well ​as officials from NATO ​and the ⁠European Union.

They are expected to discuss proposals for security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war prosperity plan, and other aspects ​of the conflict, the source said. The source said the ​Europeans had ⁠told the United States of their frustration with high energy costs and other major financial impacts of the conflict. ‘It will be a tough winter if ⁠the ​war does not stop. So, the United States ​is trying to mediate with the sides with the goal of creating a unified proposal,’ ​the source said.

They added that the Europeans had expressed ‘frustrations’ to Washington about energy costs — which Trump has blamed on Ukrainian attacks on Russian diesel refineries, rather than his Iran war. ‘They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop,’ the source said. ‘So, the United States is trying to mediate with the sides with the goal of creating a unified proposal.’ Zelensky said last week that the United States wanted to revive peace efforts by trying to broker a new round of talks with Ukraine and Russia and hold it by the end of October. The Kremlin said last month that three-way talks on ending the war could take place in October.

Previous rounds of talks have failed to yield tangible progress towards peace, with Moscow unwilling to drop its maximalist conditions to end the fighting. In a sign that Ukraine was under discussion, Witkoff was seen by AFP reporters traveling with Trump on Air Force One on Wednesday on a campaign trip to Texas for the US midterm elections. The Daily Mail has reached out to spokespersons for the White House and the State Department for comment. Trump’s push to end the war has returned in recent weeks, with the President critical of both Zelensky and Putin.

In late September, Trump claimed that Russia has ‘lost control’ of its diesel industry after a Ukrainian blitz, with his own war on Iran driving US diesel to its highest price ever. ‘A large number of their Diesel refineries have been blown up and are, at least temporarily, out of commission,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social on Monday morning. ‘This ridiculous and never ending War with Ukraine must be ended,’ he said, claiming 25,000 people, ‘mostly soldiers’, were being killed every month. ‘What a shame!’ The statement came hours after Trump pressed Volodymyr Zelensky to halt Kyiv’s strikes on Russian refineries during a phone call, the Financial Times reported.

The President’s message was ‘diesel, diesel . . . diesel’, a senior Ukrainian official on the call told the paper. A second official said Trump wanted Russian fuel flowing back on to the world market to push prices down. Trump claimed a week earlier that Moscow and Kyiv had agreed to stop striking each other’s energy sites, while blaming the global diesel spike on the Ukraine war rather than his conflict in Iran. Ukrainian officials said no such truce existed. The Ukrainian drone campaign has caused fuel rationing across Russia , despite the country being a key oil and gas exporter.

Other Ukrainian strikes targeted major Russian online retailers, bringing the war ever closer to the public. Russia has also ramped up its air campaign against Ukraine in recent weeks, using ballistic missiles and jet-powered drones to pierce Ukraine’s defenses. Moscow’s attacks have targeted Ukraine’s power grid ahead of winter in what officials say is meant to demoralize civilians. In early September, Kushner and Witkoff held talks with Putin in Moscow, followed by a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv. Despite the latest diplomatic push, the core demands of Moscow and Kyiv remain mutually exclusive, especially over territorial concessions.

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