Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, will lead the Kyiv delegation after Zelenskyy fired top adviser Andriy Yermak on Friday.
A delegation of senior Ukrainian government officials is travelling to the U.S. for talks with their American counterparts on Sunday about a proposed peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X on Saturday that Rustem Umerov, secretary of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, will lead the delegation.
Umerov’s appointment comes after Zelenskyy fired his top adviser Andriy Yermak on Friday following a raid on Yermak’s home by Ukraine’s anti-corruption watchdog. Yermak was the key interlocutor with Kyiv’s Western allies and was widely seen as the second-most powerful man in the Ukrainian government.
“The task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war,” Zelenskyy said. “Ukraine continues to work with the United States in the most constructive way possible.”
The Ukrainian officials are expected to meet with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in Florida, Bloomberg reported.
Witkoff, who is expected in Moscow next week for talks with Russian officials, has been in the center of a media storm after Bloomberg published a transcript revealing that he had been coaching a Kremlin high official on how to approach talks with Trump.
The planned talks in Florida come after the Trump administration put forward a 28-point peace plan that has been criticized by Ukraine and European allies for being too favorable to Russia. The proposal as it was originally presented included significant territorial concessions on the part of Ukraine, including the Donbas region, and would also limit the size of Ukraine’s military.
The U.S. president has said that the peace plan was not a “final offer” and that there remained room for negotiations.
“We expect that the results of the meetings in Geneva will now be hammered out in the United States,” Zelenskyy said in his post on Saturday.
Ukraine’s head of intelligence Kyrylo Budanov, as well as the chief of staff of Ukraine’s armed forces, Andrii Hnatov, are also part of the delegation sent to the U.S. for Sunday’s talks.
The Ukrainian capital, meanwhile, suffered another Russian drone and missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, local officials said. At least two people were killed.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said another 29 people were wounded, noting that falling debris from intercepted Russian drones hit residential buildings. He also said the western part of Kyiv had lost power. More than 600,000 people in the Kyiv region were without power on Saturday morning, the BBC reported.
More than 30 missiles and about 600 drones were launched at targets across Ukraine overnight, officials said.
Meanwhile, two oil tankers said to be part of Russia’s “shadow fleet” that evade sanctions were struck off Turkey’s Black Sea coast, a senior Turkish official said Saturday. The tankers Kairos and Virat were struck in quick succession Friday evening, prompting rescue operations, according to media reports.
Turkish Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said rescue services first received reports that the Kairos may have hit a mine before being told of an explosion on the Virat.
“Our crews indicate that there were explosions on the other ship and that these were also caused by external interference,” Uraloglu told broadcaster NTV early Saturday. “The first things that come to mind for external interference could be a mine, a missile, a marine vessel or a drone. We don’t have definitive information on this,” he said.