Russia says talks on US peace plan for Ukraine 'are proceeding constructively'

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Russia says talks on US peace plan for Ukraine 'are proceeding constructively'

2025-12-21 19:57 Last Updated At：20:11

A Kremlin envoy said peace talks on a U.S.-proposed plan to end the nearly four-year war in Ukraine were pressing on “constructively” in Florida, while the Ukrainian president said they were moving ”quickly."

The talks are part of the Trump administration’s monthslong push for peace that also included meetings with Ukrainian and European officials in Berlin earlier this week.

“The discussions are proceeding constructively. They began earlier and will continue today, and will also continue tomorrow,” Kirill Dmitriev told reporters in Miami on Saturday.

Dmitriev met with U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, Russian state news agency RIA Novosti reported.

Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram Sunday that diplomatic efforts were “moving forward quite quickly, and our team in Florida has been working with the American side.” This came after Ukraine’s chief negotiator said Friday his delegation had completed separate meetings in the United States with American and European partners.

Trump has unleashed an extensive diplomatic push to end the war, but his efforts have run into sharply conflicting demands by Moscow and Kyiv. Russian President Vladimir Putin has recently signaled he is digging in on his maximalist demands on Ukraine, as Moscow’s troops inch forward on the battlefield despite huge losses.

On Friday, Putin expressed confidence that the Kremlin would achieve its military goals if Kyiv didn’t agree to Russia’s conditions in peace talks.

The French presidency on Sunday welcomed Putin’s willingness to speak with President Emmanuel Macron, saying it would decide how to proceed “in the coming days.”

“As soon as the prospect of a ceasefire and peace negotiations becomes clearer, it becomes useful again to speak with Putin,” Macron’s office said in a statement. “It is welcome that the Kremlin publicly agrees to this approach.”

The statement came after reports that Putin was open to holding talks with the French president if there was mutual political will.

Macron’s office said any dialogue would aim “to contribute to a solid and lasting peace for Ukraine and Europe, in full transparency with President Zelenskyy and our European partners.”

European Union leaders agreed on Friday to provide 90 billion euros ($106 billion) to Ukraine to meet its military and economic needs for the next two years, although they failed to bridge differences with Belgium that would have allowed them to use frozen Russian assets to raise the funds. Instead, they were borrowed from capital markets.

In Ukraine, the country’s human rights ombudsman, Dmytro Lubinets, accused Sunday Russian forces of forcibly removing about 50 Ukrainian civilians from the Ukrainian Sumy border region to Russian territory.

Writing on Telegram, he said that Russian forces illegally detained the residents in the village of Hrabovske on Thursday, before moving them to Russia on Saturday.

Lubinets said he contacted Russia’s human rights commissioner, requesting information on the civilians’ whereabouts and conditions, and demanding their immediate return to Ukraine.

Multiple gunmen open fire at a South African pub, killing 9 and wounding 10

BEKKERSDAL, South Africa (AP) — Nine people have died and at least 10 others were wounded after a group of gunmen carried out a shooting at a South African pub during the early hours of Sunday, authorities said.

The incident occurred just before 1 a.m. in the township of Bekkersdal which is located 46 kilometers (28 miles) west of Johannesburg. It is the second mass shooting to happen in South Africa in three weeks.

About 12 unknown suspects in a white mini-bus and a silver sedan opened fire at pub patrons at KwaNoxolo tavern, in the Tambo section of Bekkersdal and continued to shoot randomly as they fled the scene, according to police.

“Some victims were randomly shot in the streets by unknown gunmen,” the police said of the incident that left nine people dead and 10 hospitalized.

Maj. Gen. Fred Kekana, the acting provincial commissioner of Gauteng, told the AP at the scene that the gunmen, some of whom wore balaclavas, had one AK-47 rifle and several nine-millimeter pistols.

Police did not release information about the victims, but police spokesperson Brigadier Brenda Muridili confirmed that an e-hailing driver was among those who were caught in the crossfire. She said the driver had just dropped off a client.

“He was shot and killed,” she told The Associated Press.

A manhunt for the suspects in the multiple gunshot event has been initiated by Gauteng Serious and Violent Crime Investigations in collaboration with the Crime Detection Tracing Unit.

There have been several mass shootings at bars — sometimes called shebeens or taverns in South Africa — in recent years, including a mass shooting carried out by multiple suspects in an unlicensed bar near the South African capital that left at least 12 people dead and 13 injured earlier this month.

Another shooting killed 16 people in the Johannesburg township of Soweto in 2022. On the same day, four people were killed in a mass shooting at a bar in another province.

With almost 26,000 homicides in 2024, or more than 70 per day on average, South Africa has one of the highest homicide rates in the world. Firearms are by far the leading cause of death in homicides. Although the nation of 62 million has comparatively stringent gun control laws, officials say many murders are carried out using illegal firearms.

Gumede reported from Johannesburg.