US widens Miami peace talks to Europe as envoys test ideas built with Moscow and Kyiv

Two U.S. envoys will sit down with Ukraine's negotiators in Miami on Friday, and this time Washington has also asked Britain, France, Germany, NATO and the European Union to take part, according to two U.S. sources who spoke to AFP. The agenda, one of the sources said, is a package the Americans started shaping with both warring sides on a recent trip: "They will discuss new ideas and proposals that American negotiators began developing with the Russians and Ukrainians during their recent visit to the region."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the meeting on Thursday. "The Ukrainian negotiating team is due to meet Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the U.S. tomorrow," he said. "The meeting is expected to last two days. We are also counting on a European team to join our negotiating group." Kyiv's delegation will include Zelenskyy's chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, along with Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kyslytsya and David Arakhamia.

Zelenskyy spoke after a day in which a reported Russian strike on buses in the frontline city of Kramatorsk killed 30 people, AFP reported, one of the deadliest attacks in weeks. The AFP report carried no Russian comment on the strike. Kyiv says Russia has intensified its air campaign while U.S. attention has shifted to Washington's war with Iran, a shift that has left the American-led peace track largely stalled.

A wider table and a winter deadline

U.S. officials presented the Miami round as a renewed push in a larger format. It follows visits last month to Moscow and Kyiv by Witkoff, a business friend of President Donald Trump who now serves as a roving envoy, and by Kushner, the president's son-in-law. According to the officials, the talks will cover "security guarantees for Ukraine, a post-war prosperity plan, and other aspects of the conflict."

Energy is part of the pressure. The officials said European governments had voiced "frustrations" to Washington over energy costs, which Trump has blamed on Ukrainian attacks on Russian diesel refineries rather than on the Iran war. "They are all nervous about the winter. It will be a tough winter if the war does not stop," one U.S. source said, adding that Washington was trying to mediate between the sides "with the goal of creating a unified proposal." Europe's fuel squeeze was already visible in its earlier move to open emergency diesel reserves.

Moscow's terms and a loose timetable

The calendar remains open. Zelenskyy said last week that the United States wanted to broker a new round of Ukraine-Russia talks before the end of October, and the Kremlin said last month that three-way talks could take place in October. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said Moscow prefers a comprehensive settlement to a piecemeal one, describing the aim as "a solution that would lead to a lasting settlement for many, many years," TASS reported. AFP noted that earlier rounds yielded no tangible progress and attributed the deadlock to Moscow's refusal to give up what it called maximalist conditions. Moscow has meanwhile repeated its warning that foreign diplomats should leave Kyiv.

Other signals suggest Ukraine is back on Trump's agenda. Trump said earlier this week that he had a call scheduled with Russian President Vladimir Putin, although that conversation was expected to center on the reported death of a researcher at a Russian plague laboratory. AFP reporters also saw Witkoff aboard Air Force One on Wednesday as Trump flew to Texas to campaign ahead of the U.S. midterm elections.

What it means: Bringing the British, French and German national security advisers, NATO and the EU into Miami gives Europe a role at the drafting stage instead of asking it to react to a text agreed elsewhere. That matters because Europe carries much of the economic cost of the war through energy prices, and the U.S. side is openly using winter as a source of urgency. The harder question is substance. Washington wants one unified proposal, Kyiv wants security guarantees with weight behind them, and Moscow says it will settle only for a comprehensive deal. A wider guest list can narrow differences among Kyiv's backers, but it does not by itself close the distance with Moscow.