The White House signaled optimism around efforts to negotiate a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia while warning that additional negotiations to address remaining sticking points would be necessary, despite reports earlier suggesting a deal was afoot.

“There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States,” Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a social media post Tuesday, while also citing “tremendous progress.”

The more measured White House characterization aligned with comments by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who earlier Tuesday appeared to rebut suggestions Kyiv had signed off on a potential deal to end Russia’s full-scale invasion.

“Communication with the American side continues,” Zelenskyy said in a post on X following a phone call with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz on Tuesday. “I am grateful for all of America’s efforts and personally for President Trump’s efforts.”

The sides have agreed on the broad framework of a deal, but some of the thorniest issues — including territory and security guarantees — still need to be negotiated, according to a person familiar with the matter. Those points will likely need to be resolved at the presidential level, said the person who requested anonymity because talks are confidential.

Speculation is running high that an agreement could be close after U.S. President Donald Trump suggested in a social media post on Monday that “big progress” was being made on a deal for Ukraine. ABC News on Tuesday reported that Ukraine agreed to a potential peace deal with some minor details to be sorted, citing a U.S. official.

Markets moved on the report. Brent futures fell sharply, briefly slipping below $62 a barrel in London. Russia’s oil industry is heavily sanctioned and a peace deal would remove some geopolitical premium from prices — and could ease some of the friction around Moscow’s oil flows.

Emerging market currencies hit a session high. Shares in Kyivstar Group jumped 6.3% in premarket trading.

U.S. and Russian delegations are meeting in Abu Dhabi following talks in Geneva over the weekend that made advances in defusing the vehement opposition from Kyiv and its European allies to a 28-point peace proposal the White House team floated last week.

Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, is also in Abu Dhabi for meetings, a person familiar with the matter said. Military intelligence didn’t reply to requests for comment from Bloomberg News.

The peace blueprint has been narrowed to a new list of 19 proposals in Geneva on Sunday. Yet any discussions involving territorial issues, which are at the crux of a potential settlement, would have to be tackled at a meeting between the Ukrainian and U.S. presidents, according to Ihor Brusylo, the deputy chief of Zelenskyy’s office.

Rustem Umerov, secretary of the National Defense and Security Council, said earlier on Tuesday that U.S. and Ukrainian delegations “reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva.” Ukraine was looking forward to organizing a visit by Zelenskyy to the U.S. at the soonest possible date this month, he posted on X.

The initial draft plan caught Kyiv and Ukrainian allies off-guard with its demands that the war-battered nation drop its ambition to join NATO and surrender territory in the eastern Donbas regions, including areas Russia doesn’t yet control.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he had nothing to report when asked about the meeting in Abu Dhabi, according to the Interfax news service.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday that Moscow expected the U.S. to present a version of the plan after the talks with Europeans and Ukraine. But he also signaled that any deviations from the understandings reached during Trump’s summit with President Vladimir Putin in Alaska earlier this year would be a hard sell with the Kremlin.

“If the spirit and letter of Anchorage are erased from those key understandings we recorded, then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation,” Lavrov said. “But so far, I repeat, no one has officially conveyed anything to us.”

Russia and Ukraine exchanged fire overnight with heavy air raids on Kyiv and assaults on southern Russian areas.

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—With assistance from Patrick Donahue.

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