President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are set to meet with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv on Sunday, a day after meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss plans toward ending the war in Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine agreed to hold off on aerial attacks on each other’s capitals to enable the U.S. visits over the weekend, bringing a brief respite in the cities, though no broader ceasefire is in place. The renewed talks are an apparent attempt to revive Washington’s bid to end the conflict, which is in its fifth year, after months in which momentum has been stalled by the Iran war.
While there has been little recent movement on the front lines, the talks come ahead of a likely difficult winter in Kyiv, which is facing a critical shortage of U.S.-made interceptor missiles able to repel Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure. Sunday’s visit to Kyiv is believed to be the first to be made by Witkoff and Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, as part of the peace effort. Witkoff has visited Moscow several times, most recently holding talks with Putin at the Kremlin in January.
Witkoff on Saturday appeared to strike a particularly warm tone during the meeting with Putin. In video published by Russia’s state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti, he told the Russian leader that the delegation had been reflecting on how “when we retire, we’ll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.” Putin, for his part, did not publicly signal any movement from his previous steep demands, which seek major concessions from Ukraine. He praised Witkoff and Kushner in the video, telling them: “I would like to say that working with you is a comfortable experience for us, and we certainly place a high level of trust in you throughout this process.” A White House official said “substantive plans for the next steps” in the effort to end the war were at the center of the talks in Moscow on Sunday.
In a statement to NBC News, the official said those next steps would be announced in the coming weeks, with the U.S. delegates looking forward to “equally productive meetings” in Ukraine. They added that officials from the National Security Council, State Department and Treasury Department joined the meeting on Saturday, which lasted more than three hours. Putin aide Yury Ushakov told Russian state media on Sunday that the meeting, which included an “informal setting at the dining table,” was “substantive, constructive, extremely frank and trusting,” noting it was the eighth time the U.S. delegation has visited Russia and that Putin had extended his “best wishes” to Trump.
In a nightly address on Friday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv’s goal was to have the “most constructive, substantive visit and negotiations possible with the American side.” “We need to look for real options for how to bring this war to an end,” he said, adding: “We’ll see what proposals Steve and Jared have, and what they are told about this in Moscow.” The renewed peace efforts come as Russia has ramped up its attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with relentless bombardments, exploiting Ukraine’s shortage of air defense systems. A Russian drone on Friday hit one of the most important government buildings in Kyiv, the headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service known as the SBU, one of the agencies involved in the execution of deep-strike operations inside Russia. In a social media post on Saturday, Zelenskyy said Russia had launched overnight strikes on Kyiv and Boryspil international airports, linking the attack to the U.S. visit.
He said Kyiv had “taken note of this Russian move” and would “adjust our operation accordingly regarding Russian airspace, which has become dangerous because of our drones and missiles in the sky.” “Of course, there are and will be no threats to diplomacy from our side,” he added, writing in a separate post that Sunday’s plans for “diplomatic engagements in Kyiv, involving the U.S. team,” had been approved. He said Ukraine was “ready for a substantive conversation.” Speaking with reporters on Friday during an event in the Oval Office, Trump said Kushner and Witkoff had been doing a “great job” in their efforts on the peace process ahead of their visits to Moscow and Kyiv.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
