Umerov secretly met with FBI leadership in the US
Ukraine's chief negotiator and secretary of the National Security and Defence Council, Rustem Umerov, held a series of closed-door meetings with Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Director Kash Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, during his recent trips to Miami, The Washington Post reports, citing several anonymous sources.
According to the newspaper, Umerov flew to Miami three times, where he also met with special envoy Steve Vitkoff and Jared Kushner to discuss the American peace plan to end the war with Russia, which has been going on for almost four years. However, the secret talks with FBI officials have added new uncertainty to peace initiatives over Russia's war against Ukraine.
The contacts have raised concerns among some Western officials, as their objectives have not been officially disclosed. Some sources suggest that the Ukrainian side could have raised the issue of possible corruption investigations, while others do not rule out that the new communication channel could be used as an element of pressure on Kyiv to promote the American peace plan, which involves difficult compromises.
At the same time, Ukraine's Ambassador to the United States, Olga Stefanishyna, confirmed the fact of contacts with the FBI, emphasising that the discussions concerned only national security issues and were not subject to public disclosure.
The FBI representative also said that the meetings were devoted to common interests in security and law enforcement cooperation, and the topic of corruption, according to him, was not the key one.
Such high-level meetings between the head of the Ukrainian peace delegation and the FBI leadership are atypical and raise questions about their content and implications for further negotiations to end the war.
The NSDC press service in a comment to UT neither confirmed nor denied this information, noting that some tasks are carried out officially, but without public coverage.
