Various parties including diplomats, delegations and officials are participating in the ongoing negotiations to end the war in Ukraine. They represent the United States, Russia and Ukraine, each with different goals and interests. This is the most important thing, to try to understand what is happening.
Steve Witkoff 🇮🇩
He is actually the chief negotiator of US President Donald Trump, entrusting him with all the most important diplomatic issues. He negotiated a ceasefire in the Gaza Strip between Hamas and Israel that took effect last October, and has also been very active towards Ukraine. He is not a diplomat, but a real estate lawyer and longtime friend of Trump. In the past, he has shown that his ideas are often not always focused on the sensitive issues he faces. In general, he had a more favorable position with Russia compared with Ukraine: it was he who negotiated the 28-point plan, which was completely favorable to Russia, and secondly. Bloomberg he will also train Russian officials on strategies to reassure and praise Trump.
Steve Witkoff, November 2025 (AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell)
Kirill Dmitriev 🇷🇮
In recent weeks, he has been Russia’s chief negotiator, who along with Witkoff wrote the 28-point plan, influencing the US delegation to make it favorable to his country. Nor is he a diplomat: he is a businessman who currently heads a Russian state fund responsible for attracting investment from abroad.
When Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Dmitriev was sanctioned by the US government, but recently he has become increasingly important in negotiations. This is partly due to its role in attracting the Trump administration by promising investment and business in Russia. The 28-point plan even calls for the creation of a US-Russian joint venture to do business in Ukraine once the country’s handover is achieved.
Kirill Dmitriev, September 2025 (Maxim Shemetov/Pool Photo via AP)
Andriy Yermak 🇮🇩
He is Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff and perhaps his closest adviser. He has been following recent talks, especially those held over the weekend in Geneva, Switzerland. It was he, together with Marco Rubio (US Secretary of State, we will talk about this later) who changed the 28-point plan that was very favorable to Russia into a 19-point plan that was more acceptable to Ukraine. At the same time, Yermak is quite unpopular in Ukraine, as many believe that he has amassed too much power and influence over Zelensky.
Andriy Yermak, November 2025 (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)
Marco Rubio 🇮🇩
He is the US Secretary of State, equivalent to the US Secretary of State. Throughout his career he was an interventionist Republican in foreign policy, who after the Russian invasion clearly supported Ukraine. However, to join the Trump administration, he had to soften his position, and he often followed Trump in his attacks on Ukraine.
In these days’ negotiations, together with Yermak, he nevertheless contributed to changing the 28-point plan that had initially strongly favored Russia, which he himself – in a pre-rehearsed conversation, which he later denied – had designated as Russia’s “wish list”. He is actually a representative of the most pro-Ukrainian faction in the Trump administration.
Marco Rubio, November 2025 (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)
Dan Driscoll 🇮🇩
He is the secretary of the US Army, the person within the armed forces who handles non-military matters, such as budget, personnel, and organization. However, Driscoll has far more influence than his official role suggests: he has participated in all the negotiations so far, and on more than one occasion he has been Trump’s appointee to handle some of the more complicated aspects of the negotiations. This influence stems from the fact that Driscoll is a former college classmate and personal friend of Vice President J.D. Vance. If Rubio is a representative of the faction closest to Ukraine, Vance is a representative of the most oppositional and isolationist faction, which wants to cut off aid to Ukraine and views European countries with suspicion.
Dan Driscoll with Volodymyr Zelensky, November 2025 (Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP)
