Russian envoy heads to US for peace talks as both sides exchange strikes

Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev said he was heading to Miami, where another round of talks to settle the Ukraine conflict is set to take place. 

Ukrainian and European teams are also in the US city for the negotiations mediated by President Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff and the US president's son-in-law Jared Kushner. 

"On the way to Miami," Dmitriev wrote in an X post, adding a pigeon emoji and attaching a short video of a morning sun shining through the clouds on a beach with palms. 

"As warmongers keep working overtime to undermine the US peace plan for Ukraine, I remembered this video from my previous visit - light breaking through the storm clouds," he added. 

Russian and European involvement in the talks marks a step forward from an earlier stage, when the Americans held separate negotiations with each side in different locations. 

However, it is unlikely Dmitriev would hold direct talks with Ukrainian and European negotiators as relations between the two sides remain extremely strained. 

Putin hails battlefield gains

Moscow, which sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022, argues that Europe's involvement in the talks would only hinder the process.

The weekend talks come after President Vladimir Putin vowed to press ahead with his military offensive in Ukraine, hailing Moscow's battlefield gains nearly four years into his offensive in an annual news conference on Friday.

Trump's envoys have pressed a plan in which the United States would offer security guarantees to Ukraine, but Kyiv will likely be expected to surrender some territory, a prospect resented by many Ukrainians.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Friday promised not to force Ukraine into any agreement to end Russia's offensive.

But Rubio said that ultimately both sides had to agree to a deal.

"There's no peace deal unless Ukraine agrees to it," Rubio told a news conference in Washington. "This whole narrative that we're trying to force something on Ukraine is silly. We can't force Ukraine to make a deal. We can't force Russia to make a deal. They have to want to make a deal."

Rubio said he may join talks in Miami, his hometown, on Saturday. 

Trump's global envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner are leading the talks, which will include top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov as well as top officials from Britain, France and Germany.

Umerov said on social media that he had briefed President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after the Miami talks.

"We agreed with our American partners on further steps and the continuation of joint work in the near future," he wrote. "We are acting clearly in line with the priorities defined by the president: Ukraine's security must be guaranteed reliably and in the long term."

'Ball in Ukraine's court'

Witkoff and Kushner met Umerov in Miami earlier this month without European involvement, and traveled to Moscow to hold talks with Putin.

In November, the United States surprised Europe by unveiling a 28-point plan to settle the conflict that overlooked the continent's main powers and was widely seen as favoring Russia.

The plan was amended by Ukraine and Europe, but Russia had yet to react to it, with Putin saying Friday that "the ball is now fully and completely" in the court of Kyiv and its Western allies.

"Our troops are advancing along the entire line of contact," Putin told his news conference.

"I'm sure that before the end of this year we will still witness new success," he added.

Land remains the key stumbling block in the talks, and a source familiar with the negotiations told reporters earlier this week that the United States was pushing Kyiv to cede territory in the eastern Donetsk region.

Kyiv meanwhile secured a desperately needed lifeline as EU leaders struck a deal to provide Ukraine a loan of €90 billion ($105 billion) to plug its looming budget shortfalls.

But the European Union failed to agree on using frozen Russian assets to come up with the funds.

Strikes continue

Russian attacks on Ukraine have not ceased during talks.

A Russian attack hit reservoirs in Ukraine's southern Pivdennyi port, Ukraine's deputy prime minister said, a day after a missile strike killed eight people there.

There was also a deadly ballistic missile strike on Ukraine's strategic Black Sea coast on Friday.

"The enemy struck the port infrastructure of the Odesa region - seven dead, fifteen wounded," Odesa regional governor Oleg Kiper said on social media.

According to him, "the strike caused a fire in a parking lot of trucks."

In recent weeks, Russia has pummeled Odesa's logistics and energy infrastructure, hitting a bridge on the border with Moldova and cutting electricity and heating to hundreds of thousands of people in freezing temperatures. 

The attacks also damaged foreign-flagged civil vessels in regional ports. 

Russian forces have seized the villages of Svitle and Vysoke, which are respectively in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region and its northeastern Sumy region, Russia's Defense Ministry said via its channel on the Telegram messaging app.

Russian oil tankers hit

Earlier on Friday, Ukraine said it had hit another of Moscow's sanctions-busting "shadow fleet" tankers in neutral waters of the Mediterranean Sea, its first strike in the sea in the nearly four-year conflict. 

Kyiv also struck similar vessels in the Black Sea earlier this month. 

Moscow has stepped up barrages on the important coastal region in recent weeks after President Vladimir Putin threatened retaliation for a slew of Ukrainian strikes on tankers carrying Russian oil.    

Putin also said in early December that Russia would expand strikes on Ukrainian ports and threatened to completely cut off its access to the sea if it continued attacking tankers.

Meanwhile, Ukraine said its drones struck a Russian oil rig belonging to Lukoil in the Caspian Sea and a military patrol ship near a rig, as Kyiv steps up attacks on Moscow's oil infrastructure.

The attack, which Ukraine's general staff said took place on Friday, is one of a string of strikes targeting Russian drilling infrastructure in the Caspian Sea in recent weeks, but the first one that the Ukrainian military acknowledged officially.

A drilling platform of the Filanovsky oil rig was damaged in the attack, according to the Ukrainian military. The rig came under drone attacks at least two more times in December.

Reuters news agency was not able to confirm the report and Lukoil was not available for immediate comment.

Ukraine says that Russian oil infrastructure is a legitimate target since the trade revenue is Russia's main source for financing its military.

The general staff added that a military patrol ship was targeted in the strike as well, and the level of damage was being assessed.

Ukraine has been attacking Russian oil refineries throughout 2024 and 2025, but has visibly widened its campaign in recent weeks, claiming credit for sea-drone attacks on Russian shadow fleet tankers in the Black Sea and Mediterranean.