Diplomatic efforts to end the years-long war in Ukraine have entered a new active phase, as two special U.S. envoys completed closed-door negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow Saturday and prepare to travel to Kyiv Sunday for follow-up talks, senior U.S. officials have confirmed.
Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, top negotiators appointed by U.S. President Donald Trump, held three hours of private talks at Putin’s official Kremlin residence in central Moscow, where they discussed “substantive plans for next steps” toward ending the conflict, the White House said in a statement. While full details of those proposals have not yet been released, U.S. officials note a formal public announcement is expected within the coming weeks as international momentum for a negotiated resolution builds.
This trip marks the first time that Trump’s lead negotiators will visit the Ukrainian capital since efforts to broker a ceasefire began. In a preliminary confidence-building measure, both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy have agreed to a temporary three-day halt to strikes targeting each other’s capital cities. As negotiations unfolded in Moscow, Zelenskyy publicly reaffirmed his readiness to hold “a substantive conversation” on a potential path to peace.
Russian state media confirmed the closed-door nature of Saturday’s talks, and a senior Russian advisor offered a largely positive assessment of the discussion. Yuri Ushakov, foreign policy advisor to Putin, called the negotiations “constructive, extremely frank,” adding that the agenda extended beyond the Ukraine crisis to include discussions of economic cooperation and potential large-scale mutually beneficial projects between Russia and the United States. Ushakov also noted that the Russian side highlighted what it called “tangible advances” by Russian forces in the combat zone, and all participants agreed any deal must address “the root causes of the conflict.”
That framing of Russian military advances contrasts with open-source assessments of the conflict trajectory: even amid recent escalations of long-range missile and drone strikes across Ukraine, Russian ground forces have made only incremental gains through most of the war, while suffering massive personnel casualties. Russia continues to occupy roughly one-fifth of Ukraine’s internationally recognized territory, territory seized shortly after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The visit from the U.S. envoys comes amid a recent intensification of cross-border aerial attacks from both sides. Ukraine has reported critical shortages of air defense interceptor missiles, leaving it struggling to fend off incoming Russian ballistic missile strikes. For its part, Kyiv has stepped up long-range attacks targeting Russian economic infrastructure, most notably key oil production and storage facilities.
It remains unclear exactly how the U.S. negotiators will travel from Moscow to Kyiv: Ukraine has kept its airspace closed to civilian traffic since the 2022 invasion, and no third-party travel route has been publicly announced. Kushner and Witkoff have made multiple previous visits to Russia for diplomatic outreach, but their upcoming Kyiv meeting marks a significant milestone in the latest push to end the protracted conflict.