AFP and AP, MIAMI and KYIV
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US, Ukrainian and European officials met in Miami on Friday in a diplomatic push to end Russia’s war in Ukraine as officials yesterday reported that strikes had claimed 11 lives in the nation. US envoy Steve Witkoff wrote on X after the meeting that the “constructive discussions” tackled “potential avenues to de-escalate and conclude the war with Russia ahead of winter and advance efforts toward a durable and lasting peace.” Witkoff said the meeting included “the E3, the European Commission, Ukraine and NATO.”
White House envoy Steve Witkoff attends a rally at the Freeman Coliseum in San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday.
Photo: AFP
The discussions covered energy resilience, grain exports, security guarantees, and “longer-term arrangements for Ukraine’s and Europe’s security to prevent future conflict,” he said. The “productive” exchange discussed supporting Ukraine’s post-war reconstruction and economic prosperity, including EU accession, he said.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday warned that the conflict had reached a potentially explosive impasse, with the failure to reach a negotiated settlement raising the risk of further escalation. “The other way that stalemates end is through escalation,” Rubio told reporters in Lisbon, warning that the conflict could spread to neighboring NATO countries. “We do not believe that there is a military solution to this conflict,” he added. Meanwhile, Russian strikes killed at least seven people in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, officials said yesterday, a day after US President Donald Trump announced a deal to buy Russian diesel that Kyiv warned would help bankroll Moscow’s war efforts. Three children were among the seven people killed when Russian aerial bombs hit residential buildings in Zaporizhzhia, an official said.