Ukraine delegation heads to US for peace talks after lead negotiator’s exit

Summary

• Zelensky sent a delegation led by Rustem Umerov to the US for peace talks after Andriy Yermak resigned amid corruption allegations.
• Ukraine faces US pressure for a peace deal while battling a $130 million corruption scandal and Russian advances, creating a difficult situation.
• US and Ukrainian officials are meeting in Florida on November 30, to develop counter-offers to proposals to end the war in Ukraine.

KYIV – Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Nov 29 that a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to the United States to continue talks on an agreement to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Mr Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation after the previous lead negotiator, Mr Zelensky’s powerful chief of staff, Mr Andriy Yermak, resigned on Nov 28,
hours after anti-corruption detectives searched his apartment.

Mr Zelensky said he expected that the results of previous meetings with the US in Geneva, which took place last weekend, would now be “hammered out” on Nov 30.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Mr Jared Kushner, will meet Ukrainian officials on Nov 30 in Florida, a senior US official told Reuters.

The Geneva meetings allowed Ukraine to present a counter-offer to proposals laid out by US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv almost two weeks ago.

“Rustem delivered a report today, and the task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” Mr Zelensky wrote on X.

Ukraine is facing significant pressure from Washington to agree to the terms of a peace deal while Mr Zelensky finds himself in the most difficult political and military situation since the early days of Russia’s invasion in 2022.

Political blowback from a US$100 million (S$130 million) energy sector corruption scandal
has seen two ministers and now the president’s right-hand man ousted.

Mr Yermak told the New York Post hours after his resignation that he was “going to the front”.

“I am an honest and decent person,” he said.

Russia is making incremental gains on the front line, and Ukrainian cities suffer hours of blackouts every day due to a rolling bombardment of its power grid.

Mr Zelensky has said Ukraine is in one of the most difficult moments in its history, but promised his people in a dramatic address last week that he would not betray the country. REUTERS