Trump envoys say Ukraine talks were "very meaningful" after Moscow visit

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner said their discussions in Kyiv had produced a constructive start after a Moscow visit, as the Trump administration presses a new diplomatic effort to halt Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. The two men described the engagement as “very meaningful,” while offering no public account of any agreement. Their trip links meetings with both sides of a conflict that has continued for more than four and a half years.

The stop in Kyiv on Sunday was their first visit to Ukraine since President Donald Trump returned to the White House after pledging to seek an end to the fighting. Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, told reporters that the president was closely tracking the meetings. He said Trump was working to identify a route out of the war, with the stated aim extending beyond a short-lived halt in hostilities.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the American officials had taken part in two rounds of talks. He described the objective as a peace that was fair to Ukraine and robust enough to prevent a renewed Russian attack. Zelenskyy said a further session later Sunday was expected to include national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany, underscoring the role European governments expect to play in any wider settlement.

Witkoff said the talks had been substantive and encouraging, but he also made clear that diplomacy remained difficult. In his account, a negotiated end would require concessions from both Moscow and Kyiv and a narrowing of the issues still separating them. That formulation points to the central problem facing the initiative: expressions of support for peace do not by themselves resolve the security, territorial and political questions that have sustained the conflict.

Immediate conditions in Ukraine remain a pressing part of the discussion. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking anonymously because the person was not authorized to comment publicly, said much of the conversation concerned getting through the coming winter and identifying actions possible before it arrives. Zelenskyy gave a guarded assessment, saying the talks had yielded positive prospects but that the war appeared, for now, likely to continue through the winter months.

The Kyiv meetings followed a three-hour session Witkoff and Kushner held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday. A White House official said the sides discussed detailed proposals for subsequent steps and that further announcements were expected in the coming weeks. Before the envoys departed, Trump had said they were carrying a proposal intended to end the conflict and expressed hope that it could open a viable path to peace.

Russian officials offered their own limited description of the Moscow exchange. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the U.S. delegation arrived well prepared and had set out several ideas for possible settlement routes, without disclosing their contents. He also said potential U.S.-Russia arrangements with mutual benefits were examined in detail. Video from the meeting showed Putin asking the envoys to convey appreciation and warm wishes to Trump, while characterizing the situation in Ukraine as complicated.

Both belligerents temporarily adjusted military activity around the envoys’ travel. Russia and Ukraine agreed Saturday to pause strikes while the U.S. visitors were in the country, allowing the talks to proceed. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Tass that Putin had directed a three-day halt on attacks against Kyiv because of the planned visit, while Zelenskyy said Ukraine would suspend its strikes until Monday.

For now, the diplomacy has produced encouraging language rather than a public breakthrough. The White House has not released the plan carried by the envoys, and neither Russian nor Ukrainian officials have described terms that would settle the dispute. The next test will be whether the additional consultations can turn the separate conversations in Moscow and Kyiv into a process both parties—and the European partners being brought in—regard as capable of producing durable security rather than another temporary pause.

Source: CBS World