President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that Ukraine would back a U.S. proposal for three-sided talks with the United States and Russia if it facilitated more exchanges of prisoners and paved the way for meetings of national leaders.
Zelenskiy, speaking to local journalists in Kyiv, also said top Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov had told him of the latest discussions that took place on Friday with U.S. negotiators in the United States.

A new round was scheduled for Saturday, he said, focusing on Ukraine’s post-war recovery. Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev was also in Miami for talks with U.S. officials.

Zelenskiy said the United States was now proposing three-sided talks — the United States, Ukraine and Russia — at the level of national security advisers.

“If such a meeting could be held now to allow for swaps of prisoners of war or if a meeting of national security advisers achieves agreement on a leaders’ meeting…I cannot be opposed. We would support such a U.S. proposal. Let’s see how things go.”

Zelenskiy said Ukraine stood for proposals that would leave the “contact line” where it was without Ukraine having to give up territory it still controlled in the industrial region of Donbas in eastern Ukraine.