US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday in a renewed effort to revive peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, which have been largely frozen for nearly eight months. The more than three-hour meeting at the Kremlin was the envoys' first visit to Russia since January. It came about as fighting and aerial attacks have intensified in the region and as Washington seeks to reengage both sides in negotiations.
Witkoff and Kushner also travelled to Kyiv on Sunday, marking their first visit to the Ukrainian capital.
Putin greeted Trump's envoys at the Kremlin and began the meeting by acknowledging the difficulty of the task ahead. "The situation we have to deal with today is certainly not simple," he said, as reported by The New York Times. Putin also indicated warm ties with the White House and sent his "very best wishes" to President Donald Trump.
After the meeting, Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov described the talks as "substantive, constructive and extremely candid." He said the US envoys had developed "a number of considerations on possible paths to a settlement," but gave no indication that Russia had agreed to a ceasefire or that a breakthrough had been reached. According to Ushakov, Witkoff and Kushner said they had "formulated a number of considerations on possible paths to settlement," adding they intend to "draw on the observations they received from Putin," during their meeting in Ukraine on Sunday.
The talks come against a backdrop of continued military escalation in both countries. Russia has intensified its use of drones and missiles against Ukraine, while Ukraine has expanded long-range drone attacks against Russian oil refineries and other infrastructure. The Trump administration's negotiation efforts between Russia and Ukraine have been in a deep freeze since the United States attacked Iran in February, triggering the US war in Iran.
Before Saturday's meeting, the Kremlin's spokesman, Dmitri Peskov said that the Putin had ordered Russia's armed forces to stop attacking Kyiv for three days starting on Saturday.
However, Kyiv came under air-raid warnings at around midnight on Saturday and several more times throughout the day, and Russian strikes throughout Ukraine continued unabated.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a statement that the strikes were Russia reaction's to "discussions and preparations for the possibility of the US side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine." He issued a warning last week saying that "the safe days in Russia's skies are over, " and vowed to retaliate.
However, later on Saturday after speaking with the US envoys, Zelensky said that Ukraine would stop carrying out airstrikes as talks continue. "Our goal is to make the visit and the talks with the US side as constructive and substantive as possible," he wrote on X on Friday. "We need to look for real options for how to move this war toward an end."
