Ukraine just sent its top negotiators to challenge Trump on Russia
1 hour ago · 8 October 2026Share
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was welcomed by President Emmanuel Macron to a meeting on peace and security for Ukraine in Paris. File photo. Christophe Licoppe / European Union, 2025 / EC - Audiovisual Service · CC BY 4.0
Volodymyr Zelenskyy is sending his top team to Washington.
Ukraine's president announced it a few hours ago, standing in Pryluky, in northern Ukraine, next to Ed Miliband, Britain's Foreign Secretary.
A Russian missile and drone attack hit that same town one day earlier. At least 22 people died, including five children. 54 more were wounded.
So why does this matter beyond Pryluky? Because Zelenskyy didn't just announce a trip. He used it to publicly disagree with America's own Secretary of State.
Four names are confirmed for the Washington trip. Davyd Arakhamia, who leads the Servant of the People party in parliament and has been Ukraine's lead negotiator with Russia. Rustem Umerov, head of Ukraine's Foreign Intelligence Service. Kyrylo Budanov, who has run the Office of the President — Zelenskyy's chief of staff role — since January this year. And Serhiy Kyslytsya, first deputy head of that same office.
They leave for Washington tomorrow.
The plan is to step up diplomacy, and get ready for a three-way meeting between Ukrainian, American and Russian negotiators. An unnamed source has told RBC-Ukraine that Washington could agree a date with Moscow for that meeting in the second half of this month. Nobody in government has confirmed that.
But here's the twist. Zelenskyy isn't flying his best people to Washington just to talk. He's going there to push back.
Hours before the delegation was named, Marco Rubio, the US Secretary of State, said the peace process had hit a diplomatic impasse. Zelenskyy disagreed. Straight away, in public.
He said Ukraine will not hold economic talks with Russia while the war is still going. And he said America should tighten sanctions on Moscow, not talk about doing business with it.
So think about what that means. Ukraine's president is telling America's top diplomat he has the wrong plan — on the very day Ukraine's own negotiators are getting on a plane to see him.
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President Zelenskyy held a meeting in London with leaders of the United Kingdom, France, and Germany to discuss diplomatic engagement with the United States and defense support for Ukraine. File photo. President Of Ukraine · Public domain
Zelenskyy went further still. He said Donald Trump, the US President, can and should do more to push Vladimir Putin toward real talks. He said Washington, and Trump personally, has more leverage over Russia than Ukraine's European partners do.
He also accused Putin of escalating the war. And he said if Russia really wanted to negotiate, it would match that with less fighting on the ground — not strikes like the one on Pryluky.
Now here's why the sanctions point matters so much.
Reuters has reported, separately, that American and Russian officials have been talking about something else entirely. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, and Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian investment official, discussed bringing an American investor into the Nord Stream gas pipelines. Those are the pipelines that used to carry Russian gas to Germany.
A White House official says there have been no recent talks on that. US and EU sanctions still block any restart. Germany, where the pipelines come ashore, is against reopening them. Nobody has linked those talks directly to the delegation heading to Washington.
Zelenskyy used the Pryluky visit for one more thing. He asked Ukraine's partners for weapons, not just sympathy for the 22 people killed there. He named three things Ukraine needs right now: interceptors for ballistic missiles, ammunition for combat aircraft, and investment in drone interceptors.
This isn't the first plan on the table, either. The White House had already proposed technical-level talks between Ukraine, Russia and the US in the United Arab Emirates. Earlier this autumn, Zelenskyy said Kyiv was still waiting for a date.
So far, the Trump administration has said nothing in public. Not about the delegation. Not about Zelenskyy's criticism of talking business with Russia.
So picture the room this week. Ukraine's lead negotiator, its intelligence chief, and the president's own chief of staff, sitting across the table from Trump's officials.
What nobody knows yet is how Washington will take it. As Ukraine making its case. Or as Ukraine telling it no.
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