Vladimir Putin sat down with two American envoys in the Kremlin and called the situation in Ukraine “difficult.” Just before the meeting began, his government had agreed to stop hitting the Ukrainian capital for three days.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s Tass news agency that Putin had ordered the halt on strikes against Kyiv. Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for his part, agreed not to target Moscow during the visit. Peskov said the pause would start at midnight local time and was linked to the American delegation’s trip to Kyiv the next day.
The envoys are Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Zelenskyy said he expected them in Kyiv on Sunday. They have never been there. Their last known visit to Moscow was in January 2026.
Talks in the Kremlin
Putin was flanked by foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov and investment envoy Kirill Dmitriev, who met the visitors at the airport, took them to a restaurant and then brought them to the Kremlin. Putin praised Trump’s efforts to end the war, now in its fifth year. “Understanding that he is entering a difficult situation, he nevertheless does not stop his efforts to help bring about a settlement,” Putin said.
Trump suggested on Friday that Washington had a fresh proposal but gave no detail. Earlier in the week Putin had described negotiations as “to a certain extent frozen.” American attention has been on the war with Iran for the past six months, and the push for a settlement has lost momentum.
Positions have not moved
The gap between the two sides is wide. The Kremlin said on Friday that Putin’s stance from a speech two years ago is “unshakeable”: Ukraine must give up all of four regions Russia claims and drop its plan to join NATO. Ukraine says it will not hand over land it has defended at great cost, and treats those terms as surrender.
A source close to the Kremlin said there is “no chance of reaching an agreement regarding the front line” until Putin finishes securing the rest of the Donetsk region. The source said Putin believes his commanders will manage that by the end of the year. Western military analysts consider that unlikely, given how slowly Russian forces have advanced.
Since the last peace talks in February, both sides have stepped up long-range air attacks deep into each other’s territory, and the war at sea has escalated too. Ukrainian drones hit Russian oil refineries over the summer, causing fuel shortages and higher prices for Russian drivers. Some 30 attacks on warehouses, most of them belonging to the retailer Wildberries, have also hurt the consumer economy. On the ground, the front line has barely moved.
Airports hit overnight
The pause did not come cleanly. In a post on Saturday, Zelenskyy said Russia had struck Kyiv and Boryspil international airports overnight, and he tied the attack to the planned American visit. “Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the US side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine,” he said.
He added that Ukraine would adjust its own operations next week over Russian airspace, “which has become dangerous because of our drones and missiles in the sky.” Then: “Of course, there are and will be no threats to diplomacy from our side.”
Most recently, Russian attacks killed five people and wounded five more at an industrial facility in the southern Dnipropetrovsk region, according to local military administration head Oleksandr Hanzha. The dead were workers on shift. “A locksmith, an electrician, a plumber and a machinist,” Hanzha said.
