A senior Kremlin official has played down the chances of swift progress on Ukraine peace talks amid two days of meetings in Florida between US and Russian envoys.
Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy aide to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told reporters in Moscow on December 21 that chief negotiator Kirill Dmitriev would simply come home and make a report.
“The Americans are celebrating Christmas in these days. Not many people are going to be working,” he said.
Ushakov also poured cold water on a statement by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that Washington had proposed three-way talks.
“So far, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and it is not being worked on, as far as I know,” he said, adding that Dmitriev was only holding talks with US officials.
No Putin-Trump Call
The Florida talks follow a week of intense diplomatic activity, with US envoys meeting with European and Ukrainian officials.
Trump in November began pressing Kyiv to accept a 28-point proposal that critics said was heavily skewed in Russia's favor. Ukraine and its European backers scrambled to make amendments to protect Ukraine's interests on territory, security guarantees for Kyiv, and other issues, with reports suggesting the plan now consists of 20 points and takes in more of Kyiv's interests.
“I am sure that the proposals that the Europeans and Ukrainians have made or are trying to make definitely do not improve the document and do not improve the possibility of achieving long-term peace,” Ushakov said.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov said on December 21 that there were no plans for a telephone call between Putin and US President Donald Trump, “but it can be quickly organized if necessary.”
He added that Putin would meet Belarusian leader Aleksandr Lukashenko, a key ally who has been seen as a possible back channel to Washington, during diplomatic meetings in St. Petersburg on December 21-22.
Ukraine Evacuates Civilians
As diplomacy continued, so did Russian military attacks on Ukraine.
Authorities were evacuating people from part of Ukraine's Sumy region bordering Russia, amid reports that Russian forces had abducted civilians and taken them to Russia.
"It’s unclear what’s going on there. They keep coming at us," one evacuee, who gave her name as Tetiana, told RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service on December 21.
Ukraine's ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, said he had written to his Russian counterpart, Tetyana Moskalkova, demanding information about the whereabouts of the kidnapped Ukrainian citizens.
He has also appealed to the International Red Cross for help.
"I call on the international community...to stop the illegal deportations of the civilian population of Ukraine," he said.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported 97 incoming Russian drones across the country, of which 19 managed to get through air defenses.
There were no immediate reports of fatalities. The previous day, seven people were reported killed due to a Russian missile attack in the Odesa region.
Pokrovsk Fighting Continues
The Ukrainian General Staff reported ongoing battles on the front lines on December 21. A statement said there had been 235 combat clashes on the front over the past 24 hours, many of them around Pokrovsk in the eastern Donbas region.
During his annual news conference on December 19, Putin highlighted Russian advances in Pokrovsk, a Donetsk region city that Moscow has prioritized for nearly a year and is in danger of falling to Russia.
Ukraine claims its forces still control the city center and northern districts.
It has not been possible to verify battlefield reports.
On December 20, after a first day of talks in Florida, Dmitriev declared that Russia and the United States were speaking “constructively.”
All sides involved in the US-brokered peace process have regularly cited “progress” or made other similar characterizations without providing details.
The White House did not immediately comment on the talks.
US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, are believed to be representing Washington. Secretary of State Marco Rubio earlier said he might attend the weekend talks, but no details were disclosed.
Trump was spending the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, about 110 kilometers north of Miami, but was not expected to attend the talks.
