Yermak meets Trump envoy Witkoff in New York, discusses Ukraine war crimes

Ukrainian officials held negotiations with US President's special representative Steve Witkoff during a visit to the United States, the President's Office Andriy Yermak said.

Yermak said he spoke with Witkoff in New York alongside First Deputy Foreign Minister Serhiy Kyslytsia. "The key priority is to push forward real diplomacy and ensure the implementation of all the agreements reached at the Washington summit. We are coordinating our efforts," he said.

The Head of the President's Office briefed Trump's special representative on ongoing Russian war crimes against Ukraine, including the latest massive attack on Kyiv that killed 23 people. He emphasized that Russia is taking no steps that could lead to ending the war and is instead prolonging it.

"Ukraine welcomes all peace initiatives put forward by the United States. But unfortunately, each of them is being stalled by Russia. We are open to direct negotiations at the leaders’ level and ready to discuss the broadest spectrum of issues. We believe that global pressure is needed to ensure Russia is genuinely ready to move toward peace and, in particular, to hold critically important leaders’ meetings for that purpose," Yermak said.

He added that he invited Witkoff to visit Ukraine in the near future.

Earlier developments show mixed signals on potential talks. On 22 August, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov stated that Vladimir Putin would meet with Volodymyr Zelenskyy only after preparing a "summit program," with no such plans currently existing.

On 29 August, the Kremlin repeated that it does not object to a meeting as such, but only after preparation "at the expert level."

Media reports indicate that US President Donald Trump intends to leave Russia and Ukraine to organize a meeting between their leaders, thereby stepping aside from the negotiations for now.