US Has 'Intense' Talks With Ukraine in Florida, Witkoff Heads to Moscow

On Sunday, American and Ukrainian officials met in Florida for "productive" but "intense" talks as the US officials also planned a trip to Moscow.

The Details: The meeting, which included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Jared Kushner, covered issues such as land swaps, security guarantees, and possible elections. The Ukrainian team was now led by Secretary of the National Security and Defense Council Rustern Umerov, who replaced Andriy Yermak after his resignation last week amid a corruption scandal. The appointment of Umerov seemed to signal that Kyiv was no longer pushing for the position of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy as "Father of the Nation." The talks were described as productive, with more work needing to be done on a peace proposal. Meanwhile, top US envoys, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have headed to Moscow for further discussions.

Key Quote: "We don't just want to end the war, we also want to help Ukraine be safe forever so never again will they face another invasion," Rubio said after the meeting. "There's more work to be done. This is delicate, it's complicated, there are a lot of moving parts and obviously there's another party involved here that'll have to be a part of the equation."

For Context: The European Union continues to be left out of the talks as the US seeks peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine. Last October, US special envoy Steve Witkoff had reportedly advised Russian officials on how to pitch a Ukraine peace deal to President Donald Trump. However, it was predicted last week that Russia would reject any changes to the peace plan that Ukraine accepted at a meeting in Geneva on November 24.

How The Media Covered It: Fox News (Right bias) framed their headline to say that "real progress" was being made. The New York Times (Lean Left) reported that there was a lot of work still to be done, and Axios (Lean Left) noted that territorial concessions appear to be the sticking point.

Written by the AllSides staff (of humans). Learn more. Suggest an improvement to this summary.