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Volodymyr Zelenskyy held talks on Wednesday with US Treasury secretary Scott Bessent, Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and BlackRock boss Larry Fink about Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction.
“In fact, this could be considered the first meeting of the group that will work on a document concerning reconstruction and economic recovery of Ukraine,” the Ukrainian president said in a social media post.
A photograph of the meeting, conducted over video link between Kyiv and Washington, showed Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko, foreign minister Andriy Sybiha, members of Ukraine’s peace talks delegation and other cabinet members in attendance.
Zelenskyy said the group “discussed key elements for recovery, various mechanisms and visions for reconstruction” after almost four years of Russia’s full-scale invasion.
“There are many ideas that, with the right approach, could succeed in Ukraine,” the president said.
The meeting came after a frenzied two weeks of high-stakes diplomacy between Ukrainian, US, European and Russian leaders, as they try to find a way to bring Europe’s largest war since 1945 to an end.
The push has been led by President Trump, who has said he wants to engineer a quick peace deal between Kyiv and Moscow. The US leader repeatedly vowed last year during the White House race that he would swiftly end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
After the US drew up a contentious 28-point peace proposal last month that included significant input from an envoy for Russian President Vladimir Putin, the Ukrainians — with European help — have managed to revise the document.
Kyiv sent that revised peace proposal to Washington on Wednesday, said people familiar with the matter.
Trump said he had “pretty strong words” and “little disputes” with European leaders on a call about the Ukraine peace negotiations on Wednesday.
“We’ll see what happens. I mean, we’re waiting to hear answers before we progress,” he said.
Trump said the European leaders wanted US officials to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe.
“Before we go to a meeting, we want to know some things,” he said. “They would like us to go to a meeting over the weekend in Europe, and we’ll make a determination, depending on what they come back with.”
Zelenskyy told reporters in a WhatsApp chat on Tuesday that the peace proposal had been whittled down to 20 points. Separate documents were being worked on that would spell out security guarantees for the country and the economic framework to ensure its recovery and reconstruction.
Zelenskyy on Wednesday said: “It is overall security that will determine economic security and underpin safe business environment.”
He said Kyiv and Washington had also agreed on the next contacts between each other’s negotiating teams. Earlier, Zelenskyy said he would send over Ukraine’s fully revised peace proposal.
BlackRock had previously worked with the Ukrainian government to set up a reconstruction bank to steer seed capital into rebuilding projects that could attract hundreds of billions of dollars in private investment.
BlackRock, the Treasury department and Kushner did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Additional reporting by Eric Platt in New York and James Politi in Washington
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