Ukrainian negotiators met with top US officials in Florida, amid accelerating efforts to hammer out terms of a plan to end Russia's war on Ukraine, as Russian drones again battered residential buildings, wounding more than a dozen people.
In a post on Telegram, Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, announced the start of talks, being held at the golf club of the White House's lead envoy, Steve Witkoff. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and President Donald Trump's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were also participating in the talks.
"We have clear directives and priorities: the protection of Ukrainian interests, substantive dialogue, and moving forward based on the achievements achieved in Geneva," Umerov wrote.
Rubio told reporters that the talks were aimed at halting the fighting, but also "an end to the war that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent and with an opportunity at real prosperity."
Umerov took over as head of the delegation after the abrupt resignation of Andriy Yermak, who has headed the offices of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Yermak resigned two days earlier, amid a major corruption scandal that has undermined support for Zelenskyy.
Witkoff is later scheduled to travel to Moscow to meet with top Russian officials, including President Vladimir Putin. It will be Witkoff's sixth meeting with Putin since January.
“The American side is demonstrating a constructive approach, and in the coming days it is feasible to flesh out the steps to determine how to bring the war to a dignified end,” Zelenskyy said in a post to X earlier on November 30.
Kyiv and its European allies are scrambling to develop an alternative proposal after Trump administration officials released a 28-point plan that echoed most of the hard-line terms Moscow has pressed since the start of its all-out invasion in February 2022.
For some Ukrainians, the plan amounted to capitulation after nearly four years of war that has killed or wounded well more than 1 million men on both sides.
French authorities announced that President Emmanuel Macron will host Zelenskyy in Paris on December 1 to discuss "the conditions for a just and lasting peace."
Macron has been one of Kyiv's strongest backers.
The initial 28-point US proposal, released last week, alarmed Ukrainian officials -- and reportedly angered Zelenskyy -- who then held their own talks with Rubio and other US officials in Geneva.
Those talks resulted in a 19-point plan that leaves several major issues on the table, including the fate of a chunk of Ukraine's Donbas region, the fate of Ukraine's NATO aspirations, and a potential cap on the size of Kyiv's armed forces.
Chief Of Staff Resigns
The diplomatic activity comes after a dramatic week that culminated in the resignation of Yermak, who submitted his resignation on November 28, hours after the anti-corruption investigators searched his office.
The raids grew out of a burgeoning scandal involving kickbacks made in connection with funds for defenses for Ukraine's vulnerable energy infrastructure. Two ministers have already been sacked.
Yermak, who has not been directly accused of wrongdoing, said during the raids that investigators had been given "full access" to his apartment and that he was providing his "full cooperation.
Zelenskyy himself has not been directly implicated, though the scandal has turned into the worst political crisis of his more-than-six-years in office.
Continued Russian Drone Attacks
Overnight, a Russian drone hit an apartment building in the Kyiv region town of Vyshhorod, killing at least one person and wounding more than dozen others.
Regional Governor Mykola Kalashnyk said rescuers were evacuating residents of a high-rise building and searching for surivors.
A day earlier, Russia battered Kyiv and other parts of the country, knocking out power to hundreds of thousands of people throughout the country as temperatures begin to plunge.
Those attacks killed at least three people and wounded dozens of others.
While struggling on the battlefield to hold back Russia's bigger, and better equipped military, Ukraine has hit targets inside of Russia with increasing frequency, going after oil and energy facilities.
Ukraine's military said it hit the Afipsky oil refinery in Russia's Krasnodar region early on November 29, as well as a military aviation plant in the Rostov region.
Ukraine's main intelligence agency released video purporting to show maritime drones targeting two "shadow fleet" tankers in the Black Sea. A global fleet of ships with murky registration and ownership records has been used by Russia to export oil while skirting Western sanctions.
