Miami, Florida - The Kremlin on Sunday denied that three-way talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the US were on the cards, as diplomats were gathered in Miami for talks on ending the conflict.

A day earlier, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had said that Washington had mooted the trilateral format, which would mark Moscow and Kyiv's first face-to-face negotiations in half a year, but expressed skepticism that they would lead to progress.

"At present, no one has seriously discussed this initiative, and to my knowledge, it is not in preparation," Russian President Vladimir Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov told reporters, according to Russian news agencies.

After revealing the US three-way proposal, Zelensky told journalists on Saturday that he was "not sure that anything new could come of it," and urged the US to step up pressure on Russia to end the war.

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But the Ukrainian leader struck a more upbeat note on Sunday, adding that "constructive" talks between US, European, and Ukrainian negotiators were "moving at a fairly rapid pace," while cautioning that "much depends on whether Russia feels the need to end the war for real."

"Unfortunately, the real signals coming from Russia remain only negative: assaults along the frontline, Russian war crimes in border areas, and continued strikes against our infrastructure," Zelensky posted on X.

Russian envoy Kirill Dmitriev arrived on Saturday in Miami, where Ukrainian and European teams have also been gathering since Friday for the negotiations, mediated by US special envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner.

Dmitriev "will return to Moscow, make his report, and we will discuss what to do next," Uskakov said.

The top Kremlin aide also told Russian journalists Sunday that he had "not seen" the revised US proposal to end the conflict.

Washington last month stunned Ukraine and its European allies by presenting a 28-point plan to end the war, widely seen as caving in to the Kremlin's key demands, which has since been redrafted following Kyiv and Europe's involvement.

While little is known of the latest version, Kyiv is likely to be expected to surrender some territory – a prospect resented by many Ukrainians – in exchange for US security guarantees.

Moscow's troops have been steadily advancing at the eastern front in recent months, with Putin on Friday hailing the Russian army's territorial gains – and threatening more in the coming weeks.

Russia on Saturday claimed the capture of two villages in the northern Sumy and eastern Donetsk regions, while Ukraine said it had destroyed two Russian fighter jets in the occupied Crimean peninsula.