By Olena Harmash and Dominique Vidalon
KYIV/PARIS, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Tough issues have yet to be resolved after U.S.-Ukrainian talks in Florida, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Monday, as he and other Ukrainian officials toured Europe to rally allies and Donald Trump’s envoy headed to Moscow to brief the Kremlin.
Intensified diplomacy to end Europe’s deadliest war in generations jumped across the Atlantic on Monday after U.S. and Ukrainian officials held talks at a golf resort built by Trump’s envoy and fellow real estate magnate Steve Witkoff.
Zelenskiy, in Paris, received a show of support from French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday, and will head to Ireland on Tuesday. Ukraine’s defence minister was due in Brussels for meetings with NATO. Witkoff, meanwhile, was headed to Moscow, where he will meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday.
Kyiv and its European allies have been pushing Washington to revise a proposed U.S. peace plan that initially endorsed Russia’s main demands: that Ukraine give up more territory, curb the size of its army, renounce joining NATO and be barred from hosting Western troops.
Ukraine says those terms would amount to capitulation, and leave it prone to eventual conquest by Russia, which invaded in 2014 and 2022.
RUBIO SAYS ‘WE’VE MADE PROGRESS’
“There are some tough issues that still have to be worked through,” Zelenskiy said on X, describing a packed agenda of meetings across Europe to discuss the outcome of the Florida talks. “It will be a very substantive day.”
Macron posted a picture of himself and Zelenskiy striding in front of an honour guard at the Elysee Palace. “The work for peace continues,” the French president wrote.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who hosted the talks at Witkoff’s Shell Bay club near Miami, said on Sunday Washington was “realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we’ve made progress”.
“There’s more work to be done. This is delicate,” Rubio said. “There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there’s another party involved here … that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week, when Mr. Witkoff travels to Moscow.”
INTENSIFIED TALKS COME AT DIFFICULT JUNCTURE FOR KYIV
The intensified negotiations have arrived at a difficult juncture for Kyiv, which has been losing ground at the front while facing the biggest corruption scandal of the war.
Zelenskiy’s chief of staff, who had also led the Ukrainian delegation at peace talks, resigned on Friday after anti-corruption investigators searched his home. Two cabinet ministers have been fired and a former business partner of Zelenskiy has been named as a suspect.
Trump, who promised to swiftly end the war, has expressed frustration that a deal seems to be elusive.
“Ukraine’s got some difficult little problems,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One on Sunday, referring to the corruption scandal. He repeated his view that both Russia and Ukraine wanted to end the war and said there was a good chance a deal could be reached.
RUSSIA BOMBARDS UKRAINIAN CITIES
So far, Russia has shown no sign of backing off its maximalist demands while its forces continue to make slow progress on the 1,200 km (750 mile) front line.
At least four people were killed and 22 injured by a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Dnipro overnight.
Russia said on Monday its forces had captured another settlement in eastern Ukraine, Klynove in the Donetsk region. Reuters could not independently verify the situation there. Moscow has been saying it is on the verge of seizing the ruined city of Pokrovsk, its biggest prize in nearly two years.
Meanwhile, it has been bombarding Ukrainian cities nightly with long-range strikes, mainly targeting energy infrastructure, leaving Ukrainians in frequent cold and darkness as the war’s fourth winter sets in.
Ukraine, for its part, has been launching long-range strikes to target Russia’s oil exports. On Monday the Kremlin denounced Ukrainian attacks on a Russian oil-exporting terminal that serves a pipeline from Kazakhstan, and on two tankers in the Black Sea.
(Writing by Peter GraffEditing by Ros Russell and Toby Chopra)
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