Rubio, Witkoff and Kushner to meet with Ukrainian officials on Sunday

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said a delegation led by Security Council Secretary Rustem Umerov is on its way to the United States to continue negotiations on a deal to end the Russia-Ukraine war.

Umerov was put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation after the previous chief negotiator - influential Zelenskiy bureau chief Andriy Yermak - resigned on Friday just hours after an anti-corruption unit searched his apartment.

Zelenskiy said he expected the results of previous meetings with the U.S. in Geneva last weekend to be "finalized" on Sunday.

A senior U.S. official told Reuters that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Representative Steve Witkoff and U.S. President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner would meet Ukrainian officials in Florida on Sunday.

The Geneva talks allowed Ukraine to present its own counterproposal to proposals that U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll presented to leaders in Kiev nearly two weeks ago.

"Rustem presented a report today and the task is clear: to quickly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war," Zelensky wrote on Platform X.

Ukraine is facing significant pressure from Washington to agree to the terms of a peace deal, while Zelensky finds himself in the most difficult political and military situation since the early days of the Russian invasion in 2022.

The political fallout from a corruption scandal in the energy sector worth hundreds of millions of dollars has led to the dismissal of two ministers and, most recently, the president's right-hand man. Jermak told the New York Post shortly after his resignation that he was "going to the front." "I am an honest and decent man," he said.

Russia has been making incremental territorial gains on the front line, and Ukrainian cities suffer hourly blackouts daily due to the constant bombardment of energy infrastructure.

(reuters, hal)