The update was issued hours after Russia launched a wave of overnight attacks on Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, with at least seven people killed in strikes that hit city buildings and energy infrastructure. A Ukrainian attack on southern Russia killed three people and damaged homes, authorities said.
“Over the past week, the United States has made tremendous progress towards a peace deal by bringing both Ukraine and Russia to the table,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a post on X.
“There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.”
President Donald Trump's plan for ending the nearly four-year war emerged last week. It heavily favored Russia, prompting Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to quickly engage with American negotiators. European leaders, fearing for their own future amid Russian aggression but apparently sidelined by Trump in drawing up the proposals, scrambled to steer the negotiations toward accommodating their concerns.
Senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials said progress was made at talks in Geneva held on Sunday toward ending the war.
French President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday peace efforts are gathering momentum and “are clearly at a crucial juncture.”
“Negotiations are getting a new impetus. And we should seize this momentum,” he said during at a video conference meeting of countries, led by France and the U.K., that could help police any ceasefire with Russia.
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said of the talks: “I do think we are moving in a positive direction and indications today that in large part the majority of the text, (Zelenskyy) is indicating, can be accepted.”
Latest phase of talks
U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll met with Russian officials for several hours in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, on Tuesday, a U.S. official told The Associated Press.
Driscoll, who became part of the American negotiating team less than two weeks ago, is heading up the latest phase of talks involving the terms of a possible peace settlement with Russia.
The U.S. official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive negotiations, declined to give details on how long the negotiations would last or what topics were being discussed, but noted that the Ukrainians were aware of the meeting and all sides have indicated they wanted to reach a deal to halt the fighting as quickly as possible.
Oleksandr Bevz, one of the Ukrainian delegates at the Geneva talks, said that the numbers of points in the proposed settlement was reduced, but he denied reports that the 28-point U.S. peace plan now consisted of 19 points.
”(The document) is going to continue to change. We can confirm that it was reduced to take out points not relating to Ukraine, to exclude duplicates and for editing purposes," Bevz told the AP, adding that some points relating solely to relations between Russia and the U.S. were excluded.
