Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner for more than three hours of talks in Moscow that a Kremlin aide called “highly useful,” setting the stage for the pair’s planned trip to Kyiv to meet Ukrainian leaders on Sunday.
Putin’s meeting with President Donald Trump’s envoys was “substantive, constructive, extremely frank and trusting,” Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said in comments distributed by Russian media. “Our president reaffirmed his readiness to continue working jointly with the Americans to seek political and diplomatic solutions.”
They also discussed economic matters and potential Russian-US projects “in considerable detail,” Ushakov said. The White House didn’t respond to requests for comment on the meeting.
Deep Dive
What was discussed during the meeting between Putin and US envoys Witkoff and Kushner?
Why did Putin order a pause in airstrikes on Kyiv?
How might the US envoys influence the peace talks between Russia and Ukraine?
The trip by Witkoff and Kushner signaled a renewed attempt by Trump to stop a war that began with Russia’s full-scale invasion in early 2022 and that the US president once said he could swiftly end. Putin ordered Russian forces to pause airstrikes on Kyiv as the two envoys prepared to visit the Ukrainian capital for the first time since the war began.
Putin opened the talks by calling the situation the sides have to resolve “not a simple one” and asked the US envoys to pass on his best wishes to Trump.
{{/usCountry}}Putin opened the talks by calling the situation the sides have to resolve “not a simple one” and asked the US envoys to pass on his best wishes to Trump.
{{/usCountry}}Yet multiple previous trips to Moscow by Witkoff and Kushner failed to yield progress, and the Kremlin signaled no intention after the latest talks to back off its military goals in Ukraine.
Putin is ready to stop the war only on his own terms, and Moscow’s demands are getting tougher because it believes it has the military edge over Ukraine, according to people close to the Kremlin, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.
Ushakov said the “Russian side pointed to what it described as the Russian army’s tangible successes in advancing in the combat zone, expressed confidence that the stated objectives would be achieved.” Witkoff and Kushner departed Moscow after the talks, the state-run Tass news agency reported.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier Saturday that the Kremlin had received information that Kyiv would also halt fire for three days.
Ahead of the talks, Putin spent part of Saturday marking Moscow’s City Day. He appeared at the Zaryadye Park adjacent to Red Square with Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, congratulating him on being named a Hero of Labor, and met the five figures leading the United Russia party into the State Duma elections this month.
Witkoff and Kushner had lunch at a Moscow restaurant with Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s envoy for economic cooperation with the US, Russian media reported.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X that he’d spoken with the US envoys after their arrival in Moscow. Kyiv’s goal is to make the visit “as constructive and substantive as possible,” he said.
“From the moment of this conversation, we are ready to observe a ceasefire in airstrikes against the cities involved in the negotiation process,” Zelenskyy said. “From now through the end of Saturday, as well as on Sunday and Monday, Ukraine is ready to refrain from strikes on Moscow, and we expect the Russians to do the same regarding Kyiv.”
Despite the temporary halt in strikes floated by Putin, air-raid sirens sounded on and off in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon and an attack was reported in Khmelnyskyi in western Ukraine, with four people injured.
Speaking in the Oval Office on Friday, Trump said his envoys were “bringing with them a proposal to end the war,” without elaborating.
Alexey Gromyko, director of the Institute of Europe at the Russian Academy of Sciences, said there’s a chance the visit gives fresh impetus to efforts to reach mutually acceptable terms on Ukraine.
The key question is whether Washington is prepared to engage with the negotiating process on an ongoing basis “rather than returning to it only once every six months,” he said.
Sam Charap, a senior political scientist at Rand Corp., called the Witkoff-Kushner visit timely “since the current escalation is spiraling rapidly and the parties left to themselves seem likely to continue upping the ante.”
A European Union diplomat questioned the sequencing of the trip, with the US envoys traveling Moscow before what will be their visit to Kyiv.
“Diplomacy actually works, and we have to try to make sure that we talk first to those who are our allies,” Jovita Neliupšienė, the EU’s ambassador to Washington, said on Bloomberg This Weekend.
“Moscow hasn’t changed its war aims” and “for us Europeans, the top priority still remains the same: giving Ukraine everything it needs to defend itself,” she said.