Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that a delegation from his country, led by the Secretary of the Security Council Rustem Umerov, has departed for the United States to continue negotiations aimed at reaching an agreement to end the war with Russia.
Umerov was placed at the head of the Ukrainian delegation after the previous chief negotiator, Zelensky’s chief of staff Andriy Yermak, resigned a day earlier following anti-corruption investigators’ raids on his office and home.
Zelensky said he expects that the results of the previous meetings with the U.S. in Geneva, held last weekend, will now be “formalized” in Sunday’s negotiations.
These meetings allowed Ukraine to present its proposals, after U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll presented American proposals to leaders in Kyiv almost two weeks ago.
“Rustem submitted a report today, and the task is clear: to work quickly and substantively on the necessary steps to end the war,” Zelensky wrote on X.
Yermak told the New York Post a few hours after his resignation that he is “heading to the front.”
“I am an honest and respectable man,” he said.
Ukraine is facing pressure from Washington to accept the terms of a peace agreement, while Zelensky finds himself in the most difficult political and military situation since the early days of the Russian invasion in 2022. /RFE/
