Miami Peace Talks Launch as Russian Attack Kills 30 Civilians Same Day; Europe Bears Energy Cost

On the same day Russian attacks killed 30 civilians, US President Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were scheduled to launch two-day talks in Miami on Friday, seeking a new path for the stalled Ukraine war. According to France 24, citing American sources, national security advisers from the UK, France and Germany, as well as NATO and EU officials, have been invited to attend.

Ukrainian President Zelensky on Thursday published the Ukrainian delegation list, including his chief of staff Kyrylo Budanov, as well as Rustem Umerov, Sergiy Kosliatsia and David Arakhamia. He said: "We are also counting on the European team joining our negotiating group." According to US officials, the agenda will involve "security guarantees for Ukraine, post-war prosperity plans, and other aspects of the conflict."

However, on the same day the diplomatic announcement was launched, Russia attacked a passenger bus in Kramatorsk, a frontline city in Donetsk province. According to the same report, this was one of the deadliest attacks in recent weeks, with 30 people killed. At the very moment the "new ideas" were being discussed at the Miami negotiating table, this figure underscored the gap between battlefield realities and the peace process.

This Miami meeting comes after Kushner and Witkoff visited Moscow and Kyiv last month, and represents the US side's effort to restart diplomacy in an "expanded format." US officials acknowledged that previous rounds of US-Russia-Ukraine trilateral talks had failed to achieve substantive progress, and said Moscow was unwilling to abandon its "maximalist conditions" for ending the fighting — though the report did not disclose the specific content of these conditions.

Meanwhile, Washington's strategic focus has visibly shifted. According to France 24, efforts to mediate the Ukraine war are "largely stalled" due to America concentrating on its dispute with Iran, even as Kyiv says Russia has increased its aerial bombing. Trump said earlier this week that he had arranged a call with Russian President Putin, but according to France 24, the call is expected to focus on a report of the death of a researcher at a Russian plague laboratory, rather than on the Ukraine situation. On Wednesday, Witkoff was seen by AFP reporters accompanying Trump on "Air Force One" to Texas for US midterm election campaigning.

The European parties incorporated into the negotiations are bearing a different kind of cost. According to American sources, European officials have expressed "frustration" to Washington over rising energy costs. Trump attributes the price increases to Ukrainian attacks on Russian diesel refineries, rather than to US military action against Iran. A US source said: "They are all nervous about winter. If the war doesn't stop, it's going to be a tough winter." — The transmission magnitude of these so-called "Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries" to European energy markets was not independently verified in the report.

This division of labor constitutes an asymmetric power structure: the US sets the agenda and timetable, Ukraine bears frontline casualties, and Europe pays the energy bill. A US source told AFP that America "is trying to mediate among the parties to form a unified plan." Zelensky said last week that the US hopes to facilitate a new round of trilateral talks before the end of this month; the Kremlin also said last month that such talks could be held in October. But the dead in Kramatorsk serve as a reminder that before a "unified plan" takes shape, the frontline cost continues to be paid in civilian lives.