Ukraine calls for Trump-Zelensky meeting in US this week

Ukraine's security chief says he is hoping to arrange for President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit the US "at the earliest suitable date" this month, as diplomatic attempts to end the war continue.

Rustem Umerov, the head of Ukraine's security council, said on Tuesday the US and Ukraine had reached "a common understanding on the key terms of the agreement discussed" at previous talks in Geneva.

The White House has not commented on the prospect of Trump-Zelensky talks.

Meanwhile, US Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has been meeting Russian representatives in Abu Dhabi. It is not known who is in the Russian delegation.

Umerov said his team "look forward" to organising Zelensky's US visit "at the earliest suitable date in November to complete final steps and make a deal" with US President Donald Trump.

Earlier, a US official travelling with Driscoll in Abu Dhabi briefed reporters that Ukraine had agreed to the peace deal with minor details to be sorted out.

Asked to confirm this, the administration pointed the BBC to Secretary of State Marco Rubio's comments in Geneva on Sunday, when he said higher-level discussions would still be needed to finalise the agreement.

The gap between the terms that Ukraine and Russia will accept is still very wide and the Kremlin is unlikely to agree to the kind of deal that Kyiv may approve.

Leaders in Kyiv and Europe had criticised the initial draft of a 28-point US peace plan which emerged last week, calling it too favourable to Russia.

Counter-proposals - reportedly drafted by the UK, France and Germany - excluded any recognition of Russian-held regions, raised Ukraine's permitted army size, and left the door open to Ukraine joining Nato.

On Monday Zelensky welcomed the proposed changes to the 28-point plan.

"Now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable," he said. "Many correct elements have been incorporated into this framework."

A Kremlin official rejected the amendments as "completely unconstructive".

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov – who is not attending the meeting in Abu Dhabi – said on Tuesday that the Kremlin was yet to receive the "interim" version of the revised plan, adding that Moscow's view was that it should reflect the "spirit and letter" of the Alaska talks between Trump and President Vladimir Putin in August.

Separately, a virtual "coalition of the willing" meeting of Ukraine's European allies is taking place on Tuesday to discuss developments, UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said.

Earlier in the day, Zelensky said he had a "good and very productive" conversation with Starmer, in which they discussed the agenda for the meeting.

The latest round of talks came after Russia and Ukraine exchanged overnight strikes on Monday into Tuesday.

According to Zelensky, 22 missiles and more than 460 drones were launched at Ukraine overnight resulting in fires at two high-rise residential buildings in the city centre and the deaths of at least six people.

Meanwhile, the Russian defence ministry said it had intercepted 249 Ukrainian drones overnight, including over the Black Sea and Kursk, and that at least three people had been killed in the Rostov region.

Tens of thousands of soldiers and thousands of civilians have been killed or injured, and millions of people have fled their homes, since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.

After the weekend talks in Geneva between the US and Ukraine concluded, Trump suggested that "something good just may be happening" but added: "Don't believe it until you see it."

As he welcomed the proposed changes, Zelensky said the "main problem" was Putin's demand for legal recognition of the territory Russia had taken.

Russia has consistently demanded full Ukrainian withdrawal from the whole of the eastern Donbas, made up of Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Moscow's forces also control Crimea and large parts of two other regions, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

The European Union's foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the final peace plan should make it impossible for Moscow to invade again, and that Russia should "definitely not" rejoin the G8.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Tuesday, she said: "We can't go back to business as usual... how could you imagine that?"