Witkoff and Kushner discussed ‘next steps’ with Putin to end Ukraine war, says US

Original article by William Christou and agencies

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are heading to Kyiv for the first time in their roles as Donald Trump’s peace envoys to Ukraine, after talks on Saturday in Moscow.

The White House said Witkoff and Kushner had “discussed substantive plans for next steps” towards ending the war between Ukraine and Russia during their meeting on Saturday in Moscow with Vladimir Putin.

Those steps would be announced in “coming weeks”, a White House official said in a statement, and the envoys “look forward to equally productive meetings tomorrow [Sunday] in Ukraine”. A Kremlin aide gave no indication ⁠of there being a breakthrough towards a deal to end the war.

The aide, Yuri Ushakov, said ​Witkoff and Kushner “outlined a number of ideas regarding possible avenues for a settlement” in more than three hours of “highly useful” talks.

He said Putin had told the pair that Russia was making “real progress” on the battlefield and was confident of ⁠achieving its goals, while stressing the necessity of addressing “all the root causes of the conflict”.

These are statements that Moscow has made repeatedly since Putin launched the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Both sides have intensified long-range airstrikes in recent weeks while the front⁠lines remain largely static.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Russian attacks on Kyiv and Boryspil international airports – which service the Ukrainian capital – were “clearly” a reaction to the US negotiators flying to Kyiv after the talks in Moscow.

Zelenskyy on Saturday said Kyiv had “taken note of this Russian move, and next week we will adjust our operation accordingly regarding Russian airspace, which has become dangerous because of our drones and missiles in the sky.

“Of course, there are and will be no threats to diplomacy from our side.”

Officials visiting Ukraine have largely done so by train, as Ukrainian airspace has been closed since 2022 due to the war.

Russia and Ukraine had vowed not to strike each other’s capitals for three days during the negotiations, as Washington tries to revive US-led talks to end Europe’s worst conflict since the second world war.

Donald Trump suggested on Friday he had a new proposal to end the war, without providing any details. Trump made ending the war a priority early in his second term, but little has changed so far.

Trump said his son-in-law Kushner and business ally Witkoff were bringing “a proposal to end the war”.

“Dear colleagues, I warmly welcome you to Moscow. The situation is, of course, not simple,” Putin told the envoys in a grand Kremlin hall in footage aired by Russian TV. “But before we begin to address it, I would like to ask everyone to convey their best wishes and words of gratitude to US president Mr Trump.”

The grinding war, launched by Russia in 2022, has brought increasing civilian deaths and attacks this summer. Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of east Ukraine. The war has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions.

Russian strikes on Ukraine on Saturday had killed at least seven people, including in the Kyiv suburbs, Ukrainian officials said.

The Kremlin said it would not strike Kyiv from midnight on Saturday, while the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said he would halt strikes on Moscow until Monday.

Zelenskyy said he had spoken to the US officials and expected them in Kyiv on Sunday.

Large gaps remain between Russia and Ukraine on how to end the war. On Friday, the Kremlin said it was sticking by the position Putin set out two years earlier: that Ukraine should give up four regions claimed by Russia and not join Nato. That position is intolerable to Ukraine.

As peace efforts have floundered in recent months, with US attention turned to its war with Iran, the conflict has intensified.

Ground troops have been locked in a grinding stalemate along the 775-mile (1,250km) frontline with little advance on either side. Both sides have intensified their aerial attacks in recent weeks, hitting increasingly distant targets.

Ukraine has carried out long-range strikes on Russian military facilities, oil refineries and e-commerce warehouses, to try to degrade Russia’s war effort and economy. Its strikes on Russian oil refineries have led to fuel shortages and rising prices at the petrol pumps.

On Friday, a Russian drone hit the headquarters of Ukraine’s SBU security service, one of the agencies responsible for carrying out deep-strike operations in Russia. Zelenskyy vowed to retaliate. Russia has also increased its attacks on Kyiv and other cities with waves of bombardments, stretching Ukraine’s air defences.

Russia on Friday night struck the Kyiv suburbs, reportedly killing two people in the Bucha district. An attack on the Dnipro region killed five people and wounded five more at a factory, according to the local military administration head, Oleksandr Hanzha.

He said those killed were employees working at the factory who were “doing their job when enemy missiles cut off their lives”. A 62-year-old man was injured and several homes and a building were damaged in another attack on the region’s Nikopol district, Hanzha said.

Russia also struck a shopping centre in the southern Mykolaiv region with drones overnight, damaging the building and injuring a 72-year-old man and a 17-year-old girl. Emergency services said they were repeatedly forced to withdraw because of the threat of more strikes.