U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner sat down in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday in a visit aimed at revitalizing peace talks with Ukraine.
The meeting comes as negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, have stalled amid the U.S. war with Iran.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a rare trip to Moscow last month, where he warned counterparts in Russian intelligence that escalating the war would backfire, The Washington Post has reported. He urged a return to talks, arguing that Russia’s position was weak and would deteriorate further, according to three people familiar with his discussions.
On Friday, President Donald Trump said he had decided to send Witkoff and Kushner “to see whether or not we can get something done.”
“There’s a personality problem in Russia-Ukraine. You have President [Volodymyr] Zelensky and President Putin,” Trump said Friday. “They truly hate each other. Do you know what hate is? They have serious hate and it’s getting in the way of them.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Putin had agreed to halt strikes on Kyiv starting from midnight Saturday in relation to the negotiations.
On their arrival in Russia, Witkoff and Kushner were met by Russian representative Kirill Dmitriev. “Welcome to Moscow Peacemakers,” he posted on X on Saturday.
Putin this week vowed to continue hitting Ukraine and showed little appetite to move away from his maximalist goals in Ukraine. In remarks following a China-led regional security summit on Wednesday, he cast recent Ukrainian threats to close Russian airspace to airline carriers as “a call for state terrorism,” adding that “one does not negotiate with terrorists” but saying that Trump’s negotiators are “always welcome guests in Russia.”
The last known visit by Witkoff and Kushner to Russia was in January, and the talks have remained essentially frozen since then, with the Trump administration being distracted by the war with Iran.
The war has shifted in the months since their last trip, with both sides escalating aerial strikes deep into each other’s territory.
In recent weeks Russia has ramped up its drone campaign against Ukraine, with the use of jet-powered Geran drones that are much harder to intercept than their previous iterations. The hours-long waves of attack forced Kyiv into previously uncommon daytime aerial raid alerts and created food shortages after supermarkets and food warehouses were hit.
Russia has also taken advantage of Ukraine’s lack of interceptors for U.S.-designed Patriot air missile systems, which Ukraine says are the only weapon effective enough to take down Russian ballistic missiles. The Patriot systems have been in short supply due to the Trump administration’s ongoing war with Iran.
Last week, Zelensky issued a warning, saying that “the safe days in Russia’s skies are over” and that airlines should avoid using Russian airspace as his country escalates its drone strikes. Ukraine has taken strides in developing its long-range drone campaign and has been hitting Russia oil refineries and logistics infrastructure.
Zelensky said that, after visiting Russia, Witkoff and Kushner are due to travel to Kyiv on Sunday, and Ukraine would refrain from carrying out airstrikes as talks continue. It would mark the first visit to the Ukrainian capital by Trump’s envoys.
“Our goal is to make the visit and the talks with the U.S. side as constructive and substantive as possible,” he said in a post on X on Friday. “We need to look for real options for how to move this war toward an end.”
Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
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