Ukrainian delegation heads to US for peace talks after lead negotiator's exit

By Max Hunder

KYIV, Nov 29 (Reuters) - Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Saturday that a delegation headed by security council secretary Rustem Umerov was on its way to the United States to continue talks on an agreement to end Russia's war.

Umerov has been put in charge of the Ukrainian delegation after the previous lead negotiator, Zelenskiy's powerful chief of staff Andriy Yermak, resigned on Friday hours after anti-corruption detectives searched his apartment.

Zelenskiy said he expected that the results of previous meetings with the U.S. in Geneva, which took place last weekend, would now be "hammered out" on Sunday.

Those meetings allowed Ukraine to present a counter-offer to proposals laid out by U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll to leaders in Kyiv almost two weeks ago.

"Rustem delivered a report today, and the task is clear: to swiftly and substantively work out the steps needed to end the war," Zelenskiy wrote on X.

Yermak told the New York Post hours after his resignation that he was "going to the front".

“I am an honest and decent person,” he said.

Ukraine is facing significant pressure from Washington to agree to the terms of a peace deal while Zelenskiy finds himself in the most difficult political and military situation since the early days of Russia's invasion in 2022.

Political blowback from a $100 million energy sector corruption scandal has seen two ministers and now the president's right-hand man ousted.

Meanwhile, Russia is making incremental gains on the front line and Ukrainian cities suffer hours of blackouts every day due to a rolling bombardment of its power grid.

Zelenskiy has said Ukraine is in one of the most difficult moments in its history, but promised his people in a dramatic address last week that he would not betray the country.

(Reporting by Max Hunder; Editing by Toby Chopra, Kirsten Donovan)