MOSCOW, September 7 — Two senior American envoys met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday, carrying what US President Donald Trump described as “a proposal to end the war” in Ukraine, Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II. US envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, sat down with Putin in the Red Drawing Room for talks that lasted more than three hours.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called the session “highly useful,” saying the Americans “outlined a number of ideas regarding possible avenues for a settlement.” He described the discussions as “substantive, very frank and constructive,” though he offered no specifics. Video from the meeting showed Putin telling the envoys that the situation “is, of course, not an easy one.” The two Americans were expected to arrive in Kyiv on Sunday, reviving a diplomatic track that has lurched between escalation and outreach since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Against this backdrop, both Moscow and Kyiv announced a three-day ceasefire to coincide with the envoys’ visit. The question now, said Al Jazeera correspondent Yulia Shapovalova from Moscow, is whether Russia is willing to compromise. The central obstacles remain unchanged.
Russia demands that Ukraine abandon its NATO ambitions and cede four regions — Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia — including territory its forces do not fully control. Putin proclaimed the annexation of those partially occupied regions in September 2022, a move the international community, including the United Nations, has refused to recognise.
Ukraine has refused to cede territory. The Trump administration has ruled out a seat for Ukraine at NATO, which Russia has opposed. Trump’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been uneven — he berated Zelenskyy in the Oval Office in February 2025 before later mending ties.
In August, Trump met Putin in Alaska, but that summit failed to produce a deal. Witkoff and Kushner are no strangers to high-stakes diplomacy. Both have been involved in talks over the Iran war and the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, alongside their work on the Russia-Ukraine file.
Witkoff was appointed special envoy to the Middle East and later tasked with helping end the war in Ukraine. Kushner played a major role in the 2020 Abraham Accords, which saw several Muslim countries recognise Israel — an initiative critics said prioritised Arab-Israeli normalisation while leaving Palestinian statehood unaddressed.
What the latest peace plan actually contains remains unclear. Trump said last week only that “we have an idea for peace,” without elaboration. With the envoys now shuttling between Moscow and Kyiv under a fragile truce, the wider picture hinges on whether either side is prepared to move from maximalist positions to something negotiable.
