• Rubio says progress has been made on peace deal with Russia.
• Umerov leads Ukraine’s delegation after Yermak’s resignation.
• Kushner, Witkoff also present for Florida round of negotiations.

US and Ukrainian officials held what both sides called productive talks on Sunday about a peace deal with Russia, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio expressing optimism about progress despite challenges in ending the more than 3-year-long war.

“We continue to be realistic about how difficult this is, but optimistic, particularly given the fact that as we’ve made progress, I think there is a shared vision here that this is not just about ending the war … it is about securing Ukraine’s future, a future that we hope will be more prosperous than it’s ever been,” Rubio said in Florida, where the talks were being held.

Rubio said the aim is to create a pathway that leaves Ukraine sovereign and independent. The discussions follow roughly two weeks of negotiations that began with a US blueprint for peace. Critics said the plan initially favoured Russia, which started the Ukraine conflict with a 2022 invasion.

Special envoy Steve Witkoff and US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, were also present representing the US side. Witkoff is expected to meet Russian counterparts later this week.

“There are a lot of moving parts, and obviously there’s another party involved here that will have to be a part of the equation, and that will continue later this week, when Mr Witkoff travels to Moscow,” Rubio said.

Trump has expressed frustration at not being able to end the war. He pledged as a presidential candidate to do so in one day and has said he was surprised it has been so hard, given what he calls a strong relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has largely resisted concessions to stop the fighting.

Trump’s team has pressured Ukraine to make significant concessions itself, including giving up territory to Russia.

The talks shifted on Sunday with a change in leadership from the Ukrainian side. A new chief negotiator, national security council secretary Rustem Umerov, led the talks for Kyiv after the resignation on Friday of previous team leader Andriy Yermak, chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, amid a corruption scandal at home.

As the meeting began, Umerov thanked the United States and its officials for their support. “US is hearing us, US is supporting us, US is walking beside us,” Umerov said in English.

After the meeting, he declared the talks productive. “We discussed all the important matters that are important for Ukraine, for the Ukrainian people, and the US was super supportive,” Umerov said.

The Sunday talks took place near Miami at a private club, Shell Bay, developed by Witkoff’s real estate business.

Zelenskiy had said he expected the results from previous meetings in Geneva would be “hammered out” on Sunday. In Geneva, Ukraine presented a counteroffer to proposals laid out by US Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv some two weeks ago.

Ukraine’s leadership, facing a domestic political crisis fueled by a probe into major graft in the energy sector, is seeking to push back on Moscow-friendly terms as Russian forces grind forward along the front lines of the war.

Last week, Zelenskiy warned Ukrainians, who are weathering widespread blackouts from Russian air strikes on the energy system, that his country was at its most difficult moment yet, but pledged not to make a bad deal.

“As a weatherman would say, there’s the inherent difficulty in forecasting because the atmosphere is a chaotic system where small changes can lead to large outcomes,” Kyiv’s first deputy foreign minister, Sergiy Kyslytsya, also part of the delegation, wrote on X from Miami on Sunday.

Iran and Turkiye have agreed to begin constructing a new joint rail link to serve as a strategic gateway between Asia and Europe, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said on Sunday.

The planned route, known in Iran as the Marand-Cheshmeh Soraya railway transit line and running towards Turkiye’s Aralik border region, will cover around 200 kilometres (120 miles).

It will cost roughly $1.6 billion and is expected to take three to four years to complete, Iranian authorities have said.

Earlier this month, Iran’s transport minister Farzaneh Sadegh said the rail line would transform the southern section of what was once the Silk Road into an “all-rail corridor ensuring the continuity of the network between China and Europe”.

It would also ensure “fast and cheap transport of all types of cargo with minimal stops”, she added.

At a joint press conference on Saturday with his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan, Araghchi said “emphasis was placed on the need to remove barriers to trade and investment between the two countries”.

“The two countries also stressed the importance of the rail link […] in the region and expressed hope that the construction of this line can start as soon as possible,” he added.

The ancient Silk Road was a vast system of trade routes that for centuries linked East Asia to the Middle East and Europe, facilitating the flow of goods, culture and knowledge across continents.

In 2013, China announced the construction of the “Belt and Road Initiative”, officially known as the “New Silk Road”— a project that aims to build maritime, road, and rail infrastructure to boost global trade.

Iran has been seeking to expand infrastructure and trade with neighbouring countries as part of efforts to revitalise an economy strained by decades of international sanctions.

• Netanyahu indicted in 2019 on corruption charges.
• Israeli leader has long denied charges against him.
• No admission of guilt in pardon request.
  

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asked the president on Sunday for a pardon in his long-running corruption trial, arguing that criminal proceedings were hindering his ability to govern and a pardon would be good for Israel.

Netanyahu, the country’s longest-serving prime minister, denies the bribery, fraud, and breach of trust charges. His lawyers said in a letter to the president’s office that the prime minister still believes the legal proceedings would result in a complete acquittal.

“My lawyers sent a request for pardon to the president of the country today. I expect that anyone who wishes for the good of the country support this step,” Netanyahu said in a brief video statement released by his political party, the Likud.

Neither the prime minister, who has been on trial for five years, nor his lawyers made any admission of guilt.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid said Netanyahu should not be pardoned without admitting guilt, expressing remorse, and immediately retiring from political life.

Pardons in Israel have typically been granted only after legal proceedings have concluded and the accused has been convicted. Netanyahu’s lawyers argued that the president can intervene when public interest is at stake, as in this case, with a view to healing divisions and strengthening national unity.

President Isaac Herzog’s office described the request as “extraordinary” with “significant implications”. The president “will responsibly and sincerely consider the request” after receiving relevant opinions, his office said.

US President Donald Trump wrote to Herzog this month, urging him to consider granting the prime minister a pardon, saying the case against him was “a political, unjustified prosecution”.

Herzog’s office said the request would be forwarded to the pardons department in the justice ministry, as is standard practice, to collect opinions, which would be submitted to the president’s legal adviser, who will formulate a recommendation for the president.

Israel’s Justice Minister, Yariv Levin, is a member of Netanyahu’s Likud party and a close ally of the prime minister.

In the letter, Netanyahu’s lawyers argued that criminal proceedings against him had deepened societal divisions and that ending the trial was necessary for national reconciliation. They also wrote that increasingly frequent court hearings were burdensome while the prime minister was attempting to govern.

“I am required to testify three times a week … That is an impossible demand that is not made of any other citizen,” Netanyahu said in the video statement, emphasising that he had received the public’s trust by repeatedly winning elections.

Netanyahu was indicted in 2019 in three separate but related cases that centre around accusations that he granted favours to prominent business figures in exchange for gifts and sympathetic media coverage.

The prime minister has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing.

Coalition allies issued statements supporting Netanyahu’s request for a pardon, including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich.

Opposition politician Yair Golan, a former deputy chief of the military, called on the prime minister to resign, urging the president not to grant a pardon.

Netanyahu is one of the country’s most polarising political figures, who was first elected prime minister in 1996. He has since served in government and opposition and returned to the prime minister’s office following the 2022 election.

The next election is due by October 2026, and many polls indicate that his coalition, the most right-wing in Israel’s history, would struggle to win enough seats to form a government.

Throughout his career, Netanyahu has cultivated a reputation for prioritising security and economic issues, but he has also been dogged by corruption charges. He was the prime minister on October 7, 2023, when the Gaza war started.

Since then, he has overseen the devastating war in Gaza, which has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and levelled much of the territory, drawing broad international criticism and condemnation.