Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has spoken to United States President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, hours before Washington’s top diplomat sat down with his Russian counterpart in Manila.
Zelensky said on July 22 that the call had been a good and important conversation about reviving diplomacy. He said Ukraine wanted “peace with dignity” and had long been ready for it.
Presidential communications adviser Dmytro Lytvyn confirmed the call to reporters without giving further detail. Zelensky thanked both envoys for their personal efforts and said Ukrainian and American teams remained in close contact.
The following day, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio met Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations foreign ministers’ meeting in the Philippine capital. It was their first face-to-face encounter since September.
The meeting lasted 37 minutes, according to Russian state agency TASS. A State Department spokesman said the two had discussed the bilateral relationship and the need to end the war, while Moscow gave no immediate readout.
Rubio had told reporters in Manila the previous day that Washington remained open to a role in ending the conflict “if that opportunity presents itself”. He acknowledged that American efforts had slipped over recent months.
Lavrov said ahead of the talks that Moscow was working on the assumption Washington had not withdrawn the proposals discussed at the Anchorage summit.
Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin met at Anchorage, Alaska, on August 15, 2025. Moscow has since invoked what it calls the Anchorage agreements, under which Ukraine would give up the parts of the Donbas it still holds.
The White House has never confirmed that any such understanding exists. Rubio has said that had a binding deal been struck the war would already be over.
Lavrov has separately said a reported American proposal running to 27 points remains under consideration and could serve as a basis for further discussion once the Anchorage arrangements are honoured. He has accused European governments of trying to pull Trump away from them.
US-mediated diplomacy has been largely frozen since the outbreak of the Iran war, after trilateral rounds in Abu Dhabi and Geneva earlier this year. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022.
The renewed contacts come days after Zelensky replaced his commander-in-chief following the largest wartime protests of the conflict.
