On Sunday, Zelenskyy met with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Kyiv.
"We really hope that we will be able to reach agreements with our American partners, and we count on the support of our European partners if the war continues this winter. And that's how it looks right now," Zelenskyy said afterwards.
He emphasized that the talks had nevertheless been positive. At the same time, he emphasized that territorial issues can only be “resolved at the leadership level.” The Ukrainian president has previously requested a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Witkoff, in turn, emphasized that both Russia and Ukraine must be prepared to compromise and define their demands.
We believe we have the ingredients to get there, he said.
Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Zelenskyy for just over three hours on Sunday after meeting with Putin the day before. After the meeting, they went into the next one - where Ukraine and the US were joined by representatives from the UK, France and Germany.
From Moscow to Kyiv
Few details have been made public about the meeting in Moscow, but according to Kremlin adviser Yuri Ushakov, the talks were "extremely frank."
According to Ushakov, Putin highlighted Russia's "success" on the battlefield and its unchanged goals in the war, Russian state news agency TASS reported. Putin stressed, as he has done since the beginning of the war, that the "root causes of the conflict" must be resolved.
Witkoff and Kushner left Moscow by plane and arrived in Kyiv by train on Sunday, their first official visit to the Ukrainian capital during wartime.
Ahead of the Americans' arrival, Zelenskyy wrote on social media that "We need peace. We need security guarantees. We need a decent peacetime after the war. Our proposals are prepared."
Deadly Russian attacks
Russia currently controls almost a fifth of Ukraine's territory and claims several regions in eastern Ukraine. The White House says that "concrete plans for the next steps" have been discussed with the Kremlin and will be announced in the coming weeks.
At least eight people were killed and nearly 70 injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine early Sunday, according to Ukrainian authorities. Several of the deaths were recorded in the Kharkiv and Kherson regions, which were heavily shelled.
On Saturday, Putin announced that attacks on the capital Kyiv would be halted for three days, due to the Americans' visit.
