Kyiv: A Ukrainian delegation is set to meet Thursday with American envoys in the run-up to another round of trilateral talks with Russia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Rustem Umerov, Ukraine’s National Security and Defence Council Secretary, is due to hold talks with US President Donald Trump’s envoy, Steve Witkoff, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Zelenskyy told reporters in a media chat Wednesday.
The meeting will take place in Geneva, Umerov’s press secretary Diana Davytian said.
The Swiss city is also expected to host on the same day a round of nuclear talks between the United States and Iran.
A US push for peace has already brought Russia and Ukraine to the table in Abu Dhabi and Geneva this year, but the talks have produced no breakthrough on bridging key differences as Russia’s all-out invasion of its neighbour enters its fifth year.
Thursday’s meeting will address details of a possible postwar recovery plan for Ukraine and discuss preparations for an upcoming trilateral meeting with Moscow officials, Zelenskyy said, adding that he has also tasked Umerov with discussing a possible prisoner exchange.
Ukraine wants the talks with Russia to take place next week, he said.
In a defiant stance Tuesday, amid events marking the fourth anniversary of Russia’s invasion, Zelenskyy noted that Russia has not defeated Ukraine nor broken the Ukrainian spirit, despite its bigger and better-equipped army and heavy bombardment of civilian areas.
Ukrainian forces have in recent months pushed back Russia’s army at points along the roughly 1,250-kilometre (750-mile) front line in eastern areas of the country, according to the Institute for the Study of War.
The significant gains are the biggest since 2024, the Washington-based think tank said, though they are unlikely to grow into major offensives as Ukraine struggles with a troop shortage. Even so, they likely will disrupt Russian plans for a spring-summer offensive, it said.
Ukraine has also continued its almost nightly long-range drone barrage of military and allied infrastructure targets deep inside Russia.
The US State Department has expressed its displeasure with Ukraine’s recent attacks on the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea that have impacted US oil interests in Kazakhstan, Kyiv’s chief envoy to Washington said Tuesday.
Early Wednesday, four workers of the Dorogobuzh fertiliser plant in western Russia’s Smolensk region were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack, and another 10 were injured, Gov. Vasily Anokhin said. He said that the attack sparked a fire at the plant.
Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, said Russia attacked with 115 strike drones overnight.
In a village in the southern Zaporizhzhia district, a strike killed four people and injured a child, Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said.
