Ukraine is attempting to accelerate efforts to end the four-year war with Russia and capitalise on the United States-brokered talks before other factors come into play, the campaigns for the U.S. Congressional midterms elections in November.
“Only Trump can end the war,” Ukraine’s foreign minister Andrii Sybiha told Reuters.
This comes as another round of peace talks comes to an end in Abu Dhabi between officials from Ukraine, Russia and the U.S.
While the negotiations ended without any breakthroughs, both sides agreed to hand over 157 prisoners of war.
The talks have been based on U.S. President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plans and Sybiha said only “a few” points remain unresolved.
He described these points as "the most sensitive and most difficult, to be dealt with at the leaders' level”.
Key issues, such as land, are slowing down the peace talks as Russia maintains its demand that Ukraine cede the remaining 20% of the eastern region of Donetsk.
Ukraine also wants control over the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant - the largest in Europe - which is in Russian-occupied territory.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that the U.S. proposed a new round of talks in Miami next week, which Kyiv agreed to.
"My assessment is we have momentum, that's true,” Sybiha said.
“We need consolidation or mobilisation of these peace efforts, and we're ready to speed up."
Zelenskyy has also said the U.S. has given Ukraine and Russia another deadline to reach a peace settlement.
He said the Trump administration has put pressure on the two countries to end the war by June.
“They say they want to get everything done by June,” he said.
“They will do everything to end the war, and they want a clear schedule of all events.”
The Ukrainian President added that if an agreement wasn’t reached by June, Washington would probably put pressure on both sides to meet.
Ahead of entering the White House for a second time, Trump promised to “end the war in 24 hours”.
Later, his special envoy for Ukraine, Keith Kellogg, suggested both sides could reach an agreement within 100 days of Trump’s inauguration.
When this failed to occur, Trump set a new deal in August last year, which also passed with no sign of peace and in December, he said a draft agreement to end the war was “95% done”.
