Ukraine peace plan: Kremlin denies three-way talks in preparation

The Kremlin yesterday denied that three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States were on the cards, as diplomats gathered in Miami for talks on ending the conflict.

A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said that Washington had mooted the trilateral format, which would mark Moscow and Kyiv's first face-to-face negotiations in half a year, but expressed scepticism that they would lead to progress.

"At present, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and to my knowledge, it is not in preparation," Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters, according to Russian news agencies.

After revealing the US three-way proposal, Zelensky added that European envoys could be present and said that it would be "logical to hold such a joint meeting".

But he then told journalists, "I am not sure that anything new could come of it," and urged the United States to step up pressure on Russia to end the war.

Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev arrived Saturday in Miami, where Ukrainian and European teams have also been gathering since Friday for the negotiations, mediated by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.