By Staff, Agencies

A Russian diplomatic delegation is expected to travel to Florida later this week for discussions with U.S. figures linked to President Donald Trump’s efforts to broker a peace settlement in the Ukraine conflict, according to media reports.

The delegation is reportedly headed by Kirill Dmitriev, a senior Russian negotiator, and is due to hold meetings over the weekend in Miami with US special presidential envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law. The reports, published by Politico and Axios, cited sources familiar with the arrangements. Witkoff and Kushner were in Germany earlier this week for talks with Ukrainian officials focused on potential security guarantees for Kiev.

Separately, a Ukrainian delegation led by National Security and Defense Council Secretary Rustem Umerov is also expected to travel to Miami later in the week. Media reports stressed, however, that no trilateral meeting involving Russian, US and Ukrainian representatives is planned.

Kiev and its European allies have been pressing Washington to revise or soften its initial peace proposal, which media accounts say addressed several long-standing Russian demands. Moscow has refrained from publicly commenting on negotiations in which it is not directly involved, consistently stating that it can only evaluate proposals conveyed through official diplomatic channels.

Russian officials have maintained that any viable settlement must address what they describe as the root causes of the conflict, including the expansion of Western military infrastructure in Ukraine and policies by Kiev that Moscow says discriminate against ethnic Russians.

On the battlefield, Russian forces are described as retaining the advantage. President Vladimir Putin recently said that accumulated combat experience in breaching Ukrainian defenses “allows us to increase the pace of advancement in strategic directions.”

Speaking at a Defense Ministry meeting on Wednesday, Putin blamed the escalation of the conflict on former US President Joe Biden, arguing that his administration had anticipated a rapid victory over Russia. European leaders, he said, “immediately joined the efforts of the previous American administration,” hoping to benefit from weakening Russia and settling long-standing grievances.