Three hours at the Kremlin, then dinner. That was how Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner spent Saturday with Vladimir Putin, according to a Kremlin press briefing, before turning to the harder part of the weekend: Kyiv.
Witkoff, the US envoy, and Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, were due to reach the Ukrainian capital on Sunday. It will be their first visit since the war began. The Kremlin released video of the afternoon session.
What Moscow said
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called the talks “useful” and said the Americans had “prepared seriously for this trip.” By his account, the US side wanted hostilities ended as quickly as possible and brought “a whole series of considerations regarding possible paths to a settlement.” He said the envoys promised to carry “the observations and assessments they received personally from the President of Russia” to Volodymyr Zelensky.
The tone at the table was warm. Putin opened by admitting the situation was “not a simple one” and asked the delegation to pass his thanks to Trump. Witkoff told him that “when we retire, we’ll have all these incredible stories, and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.” Kirill Dmitriev, who heads Russia’s sovereign wealth fund and serves as a Kremlin envoy, sat in with Ushakov and later called it an “important peacemaking visit.”
A White House official said both sides “discussed substantive plans for next steps, which will be announced in the coming weeks.”
A narrow pause
Putin said he had ordered a three-day halt to Russian attacks on Kyiv to coincide with the US visit. He was clear that this was not a wider ceasefire. Zelensky, who said he had spoken to both envoys on Saturday, answered on X: “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.”
The days before had been anything but quiet. A Russian strike on Friday hit the headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU. Zelensky said missiles also struck two airports near Kyiv on Saturday, including Boryspil, which handled international flights before the war, and called them “evidently” a reaction to talk of the Americans flying in. Foreign visitors have generally come to Kyiv by rail from Poland, and it was unclear whether the strikes would change the delegation’s plans. Zelensky has also said Ukraine is short of air defense interceptors and exposed to ballistic missiles.
Positions unchanged
Trump called the pair “great negotiators” at the White House on Friday and said “they’re bringing with them a proposal to end the war,” adding there “may be a good chance we will do it.” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov pointed to Trump’s own remark a day earlier that there was no talk of new ideas. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS that Washington “must take into account the realities on the ground,” where “the situation is changing not in Kyiv’s favor.” Russian forces have inched forward in recent months, and a string of industrial towns in Donetsk is under growing threat.
Zelensky said before the visit that Kyiv wanted talks “as constructive and substantive as possible” and a search for “realistic options on how to bring this war to an end.”
Sources
- Witkoff and Kushner to take US peace push to Kyiv after meeting Putin in Moscow | CNN
- Putin’s talks with Witkoff and Kushner have ended: they lasted more than three hours
- Witkoff and Kushner to take US peace push to Kyiv after meeting Putin in Moscow
