Ukraine's negotiating team cuts short US trip, FT reports
The delegation had been due to stay through Saturday to press Washington on air defence, Financial Times reports.
Published
Ukraine's negotiating team has cut short its trip to Washington, the Financial Times reports.
The visit had been scheduled to run Friday through Saturday. President Volodymyr Zelenskiy had said the delegation was travelling to meet Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to press the United States on air defence, with European negotiators expected to join the US-Ukraine track in the coming days. Zelenskiy had also said Kyiv could not negotiate peace with Russia while discussing future business opportunities at the same time.
The early departure follows a day in which Ukraine was described as "surprised" by President Trump's own announcement on the war. Trump has said the conflict is getting closer to ending but that the United States still has to "finish it off," without attaching any new mechanism to that goal. Russia has continued to say conditions for talks are "not ready."
The shortened trip undercuts the idea that this round of contacts was more organised than the stalled diplomacy that came before it. It arrives on top of a pattern in which statements from Washington about progress have repeatedly run ahead of what Kyiv and Moscow are actually prepared to do. The stalemate that both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and the Kremlin have already acknowledged remains in place, with no concrete next step on the calendar.