Envoys travel the globe to push a US plan for ending Russia’s war in Ukraine

U.S.-Led Diplomatic Push for Ukraine Peace Gains Momentum

A concentrated diplomatic effort to end Russia’s nearly four-year-old war in Ukraine has gained significant momentum in recent months, with high-level meetings between American, Ukrainian, and Russian officials taking place across multiple continents since late 2025.

The peace initiative, spearheaded by the Trump administration, has involved an unprecedented series of negotiations that began in November 2025 when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled to Turkey in what he described as an effort to reinvigorate peace talks. Shortly afterward, reports emerged of a 28-point peace plan drafted jointly by the U.S. and Russia, though critics claimed the proposal heavily favored Moscow’s interests.

The diplomatic cascade accelerated when U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll visited Kyiv on November 20 to brief Zelenskyy on the American-backed peace proposal. This was quickly followed by talks in Geneva between U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and a Ukrainian delegation led by then-presidential chief of staff Andrii Yermak. While both sides reported making progress, few concrete details emerged from these discussions.

In late November, Driscoll met with Russian officials in Abu Dhabi, though Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov indicated that the parties had not discussed the new peace plan in detail during these talks. By month’s end, a Ukrainian delegation under Rustem Umerov—who replaced Yermak following a corruption scandal in Ukraine’s energy sector—met with U.S. officials in Florida.

December witnessed even more intensive diplomatic activity. Zelenskyy traveled to Paris to brief French President Emmanuel Macron on the Florida talks while a U.S. delegation headed to Moscow. In a particularly significant development, Putin met with White House senior adviser Steven Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin for a five-hour session on December 2. Russian officials described the meeting as constructive but emphasized that substantial work remained.

The diplomatic shuttle continued with Ukrainian delegations returning to Florida for further discussions with U.S. representatives. By mid-December, following talks in Berlin, American officials announced that Washington had agreed to provide Kyiv with unspecified security guarantees, marking a potential breakthrough in negotiations.

As 2025 drew to a close, Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev held several days of talks with Witkoff and Kushner in Miami, while Ukrainian officials also met separately with the American team in Florida. In a telling diplomatic sequence, President Trump spoke with Putin before sitting down with Zelenskyy, who had flown to Florida for direct discussions with the American president on December 28.

The diplomatic momentum carried into 2026, with Zelenskyy and other Ukrainian officials attending a summit of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris. During these talks, Kyiv’s allies emphasized progress toward agreeing on mechanisms to defend Ukraine should a peace deal be reached, including international guarantees to deter future Russian aggression.

Despite these diplomatic advances, Russia continued its military campaign, launching fresh attacks against Ukraine’s power grid in mid-January, cutting electricity and heat during freezing temperatures—a stark reminder of the ongoing hostilities even as peace talks progressed.

The World Economic Forum in Davos provided another venue for high-level engagement, with Dmitriev meeting the American team and Ukrainian officials holding separate talks with Witkoff and Kushner. Trump and Zelenskyy also met for about an hour in Davos, with both leaders describing the discussions in positive terms.

In late January 2026, Putin hosted Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow for nearly four hours. Following these discussions, Ushakov reaffirmed Russia’s position that “reaching a long-term settlement can’t be expected without solving the territorial issue,” highlighting the significant challenges that remain.

The diplomatic process reached a notable milestone on January 23 when Russian, Ukrainian, and U.S. delegates held talks together in Abu Dhabi—the first known trilateral meeting involving the Trump administration and representatives from both warring nations. Zelenskyy acknowledged that the contentious issue of territorial concessions was likely to be discussed, while the Kremlin described the gathering as a “working group on security issues.”

This flurry of diplomatic activity represents the most sustained peace effort since the war began, though significant obstacles remain, particularly regarding Ukraine’s territorial integrity and future security arrangements.