President Volodymyr Zelensky approved the peace negotiation group members.
The relevant decree was published on the website of the Presidentʼs Office.
The group included:
- the head of the Presidential Office (OP) Andriy Yermak;
- the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Andriy Sybiha;
- the Minister of Defense of Ukraine Rustem Umerov;
- the deputy head of the OP Pavlo Palisa.
Yermak will lead the delegation. He will be able to make changes to the composition of the Ukrainian delegation in agreement with the Minister of Foreign Affairs.
He is also allowed to involve employees of state bodies, enterprises, institutions, organizations in agreement with their heads, scientific advisors and experts.
What preceded
On March 11, negotiations between Ukrainian and US delegations took place in Saudi Arabia. According to their results, Ukraine agreed to an immediate temporary ceasefire — in exchange, Washington decided to resume aid and intelligence sharing. Trumpʼs national security adviser Mike Waltz said that he would discuss the idea of a temporary ceasefire with his Russian counterpart "in the coming days".
Volodymyr Zelensky said that a 30-day ceasefire will apply to the entire front line if Russia agrees to it.
Putin said on March 13 that the ceasefire is “the right idea” that Russia supports, but there are issues that still need to be discussed. He considers it very difficult to monitor violations during the ceasefire along the nearly 2 000 km front line.
And also, according to him, it is unclear what will happen to those who remained in the Kursk region: whether the Ukrainian command will order the fighters to lay down their arms and surrender, or whether the Russian Federation should release them from this zone without a fight.
Putin says that during these 30 days of ceasefire, Ukraine can continue to receive weapons, mobilize, and train mobilized people — the Russian Federation needs guarantees that this will not happen, but it is currently unclear how to control these moments.
The President of Ukraine reacted to Putinʼs words and said that he was actually preparing a refusal, and everything that was happening was Russian manipulation. The American side spoke of its readiness to organize control and verification of the ceasefire.
For more news and in-depth stories from Ukraine please follow us on X.