America just restarted Ukraine peace talks and Russia hasn't agreed to show up

Donald Trump's envoys are sitting down with Ukraine tomorrow.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are flying to Miami. They're meeting Ukraine's negotiating team, plus European officials. The goal: a unified plan to end the war with Russia.

So why does this feel different? Because the small talks weren't working.

For months, the US-led peace push barely moved. Washington was busy with Iran. And Kyiv says Russia's air attacks just kept getting worse.

Now the US is going bigger. A US official told AFP they're making what they called a fresh effort, in an enlarged format.

Here's who's actually in the room. Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow and Kyiv last month to build these ideas. They briefed Donald Trump on the plan two days ago, alongside Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and deputy national security adviser Mike Needham.

On Ukraine's side: Kyrylo Budanov. He's run Volodymyr Zelensky's Office of the President since January, after years leading Ukraine's military intelligence. With him: Rustem Umerov, who now heads Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service, Sergiy Kyslytsya, and David Arakhamia, who leads the Servant of the People faction in parliament.

Volodymyr Zelensky says his negotiating team is due to meet Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff in the US tomorrow. He says the meeting will run two days. And he says Ukraine wants a European team at the table too.

That European team is real. The US has invited national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany. NATO and the EU are sending people too. European governments are worried about energy costs this winter. Zelensky says Ukraine is talking to the US about an energy and grain ceasefire.

So what's actually on the table? Security guarantees for Ukraine. A post-war prosperity plan. And other parts of the conflict, a US official says. Nobody has said what any of that actually means yet.

Russia hasn't said a word about Miami. The Kremlin said last month that three-way talks could happen in October. But nobody has confirmed Russia is showing up to this one, or any one.

And here's the backdrop. While envoys fly to Florida, the war is still killing people.

Earlier today, a Russian glide bomb hit two passenger buses in Kramatorsk, in eastern Ukraine. Al Jazeera and NBC report at least 30 people killed. ABC Australia reports at least 33. At least 18 people were wounded.

Vadym Filashkin, the regional governor, shut down all public transport in Kramatorsk and the nearby city of Sloviansk after the strike.

Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia hit an ordinary public transport stop, in his words, and that the attack will not go unanswered. Moscow hasn't commented. Russia generally denies targeting civilians.

So what don't we know? Almost everything that matters.

Nobody has said what the new ideas actually are. Nobody has confirmed Russia will join real three-way talks. The European security guarantees haven't been spelled out. And no report says whether Volodymyr Zelensky is going to Miami himself, or just sending his team.

The talks start tomorrow and run two days. Whether Moscow accepts anything that comes out of them is a different question. And right now, nobody in Miami can answer it.