President Donald Trump’s top negotiators, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday for talks on ending the war in Ukraine, as both Russia and Ukraine pledged to refrain from striking each other’s capitals for three days during the negotiations.
The meeting, held in a grand hall inside Putin’s official residence in the heart of the Russian capital, lasted three hours, according to Russian state media. Kremlin footage showed Witkoff and Kushner being greeted by Putin, who told them the current situation “is not so easy” and that Russia would explain “how we see the situation.” Putin also thanked Trump for his peacemaking efforts. He asked the envoys to convey his best wishes and gratitude to the US president.
Witkoff thanked Putin for agreeing to halt strikes on Kyiv during the delegation’s visit. Trump said on Friday that Kushner, his son-in-law, and Witkoff, his special envoy and business ally, were bringing “a proposal to end the war,” though he offered no details on what the plan contained. So far, efforts by the US and its allies to broker a peace deal have failed. Delegations from Ukraine have attended talks in the US over the past 18 months. European allies also held talks in Paris, but discussions ultimately ended without a breakthrough.
A fragile three-day truce on strikes against capitals
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin, as commander-in-chief, had ordered a halt to strikes on Kyiv from midnight Saturday for three days. Zelenskyy said Ukraine would refrain from striking Moscow. “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,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said he had spoken to the US envoys and that they had already begun working with the Russian side. He said the plan for diplomatic engagements in Kyiv involving the US team had been approved. “We are waiting for Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and are ready for a substantive conversation,” he added. The visit to Kyiv on Sunday would mark the first time the two envoys have traveled to the Ukrainian capital. Both have visited Moscow before. Their most recent visit was in January.
It remains unclear how the envoys will travel from Moscow to Kyiv. Ukraine’s airspace has been closed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Zelenskyy accused Russia of trying to disrupt the visit with overnight strikes on Kyiv’s two airports, saying the attacks were a reaction to preparations for the possibility of a US aircraft landing at Kyiv Airport or Boryspil Airport. He said he would guarantee the safety of Russian airspace during the envoys’ visit and called for Russia to do the same for Ukraine.
Civilian casualties and a grinding stalemate
Russian strikes on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least seven people, including in the Kyiv suburbs, Ukrainian officials said. Two people were killed in the Bucha district outside Kyiv, according to Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv region. Zelenskyy also said an overnight Russian strike on a civilian building in the Dnipro region killed four people and injured five others.
One person was killed and another injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Belgorod region, according to local authorities. On Friday, a Russian drone hit the headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service, one of the agencies responsible for carrying out deep-strike operations in Russia. Zelenskyy vowed to retaliate.
The war, launched by Russia in 2022, has killed hundreds of thousands and displaced millions. Ground troops have been locked in a grinding stalemate along the 775-mile frontline with little advances on either side. Both sides have intensified their aerial attacks in recent weeks. 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 pump.
Large gaps remain. 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. Al Jazeera’s Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow, said Putin remains publicly open to peace talks but will not make concessions on key issues and will not negotiate with what he calls terrorists. Some analysts say Kremlin expectations for this visit are less pessimistic because previous trips by Witkoff and Kushner produced no progress, and Putin believes Russia holds a military advantage on the battlefield.
Al Jazeera’s Audrey Macalpine, reporting from Kyiv, said the envoys’ visit to Ukraine is being viewed as a milestone there, though many see it as more ceremonial than likely to produce concrete results. Many people in Ukraine believe foreign diplomats need to come to the country to fully understand the scope of the war, she added. There was no official comment from Washington or the Kremlin on what was discussed. Trump described the meeting last week as “semi-routine.” The visit comes just over a week after CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a rare visit to the Russian capital.