Wittkoff and Kushner call Kyiv talks “substantive” after inconclusive meeting with Putin in Moscow

American envoys Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv by train on Sunday for their first official visit to Ukraine — shortly after spending more than three hours in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow the day before, with no breakthrough to show for it.

Wittkoff described the Kyiv talks as “substantive” and said he was “very encouraged.” Kushner noted that the delegation had “learned a lot from this trip.” According to a knowledgeable source cited by Axios, Wittkoff told Zelensky that his mission was to “bring the Russian and Ukrainian sides closer together and bridge the differences to reach a joint solution that will end the war.” Kushner, for his part, said the administration was seeking “a comprehensive and lasting peace, not just a cessation of the current war in Ukraine.”

Talks in two capitals

The closed-door meeting at the Kremlin on Saturday ended without any agreements being signed. Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov described the talks as “constructive, frank, and useful” and said the American representatives had “outlined a number of ideas regarding possible paths to a settlement,” without going into detail. A White House spokesperson said “specific plans for next steps” would be announced in the coming weeks.

In Kyiv, Zelensky stressed that any agreement must include security guarantees. Ahead of the meeting, he wrote on Telegram:

“We need peace. We need security guarantees. We need a just and sustainable post-war world. Our proposals are ready.” — Volodymyr Zelensky.

National security advisers from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany also arrived in Kyiv for the Sunday talks.

A fragile truce amid continued fighting

Both capitals received a brief respite from bombardment: Putin announced a 72-hour pause in strikes on Kyiv, while Zelensky pledged to refrain from attacks on Moscow until Monday. However, the arrangement did not extend to the rest of the front. Russian strikes overnight killed one person and wounded at least ten others across several Ukrainian regions. Ukraine’s air force reported intercepting 82 of 108 Russian drones launched overnight, as well as six missiles. Russia reported one person killed in a Ukrainian drone strike in the border Belgorod region.

Deep skepticism on the ground

The visit marked the envoys’ first trip to Moscow since January and their first appearance in Kyiv as negotiators. Key disagreements remain unresolved: Russia is demanding territorial concessions from Ukraine and that Kyiv abandon its bid to join NATO, while Ukraine rejects any territorial concessions.

Not all Ukrainians are optimistic. Oleksandr Pastukhov, a 27-year-old Kyiv resident, told the Associated Press:

“We’ve already seen delegations like this come here. We saw this so-called three-day ceasefire that ended after just a couple of hours — and now we’re supposed to naively think that two people will come and change something?”