U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for talks with Volodymyr Zelensky, a day after a three-hour meeting in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
As he prepared to welcome the U.S. delegation, the Ukrainian president said his country was “interested in bringing the end of the war closer.”
“Our proposals are ready,” he said in a post on X.
Sunday’s visit marks the first by President Donald Trump’s envoys to the Ukrainian capital.
The Moscow talks with Putin marked the first known visit to Russia by Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and the first visit for Witkoff since January.
Yuri Ushakov, a Putin foreign policy aide, told reporters the talks, which lasted more than three hours, were “substantive, constructive and extremely candid.”
Ushakov said Witkoff and Kushner “formulated a number of considerations on possible paths to a settlement” and promised to “draw on the observations they received from Putin” during the talks in Kyiv.
Zelensky said late Saturday that he had spoken to Witkoff and Kushner and he was “ready for a substantive conversation.”
He said Ukraine would refrain from striking Moscow through Monday. Russia has also agreed to halt attacks on Kyiv.
The push to renew peace talks comes just over a week after CIA Director John Ratcliffe made an unexpected trip to Moscow, where he told his Russian counterpart that ramping up the war against Ukraine would backfire. Ratcliffe did not meet with Putin during his visit, the Kremlin said.
In the Oval Office on Friday, Trump told reporters that Witkoff and Kushner were “bringing with them a proposal to end the war” but did not detail the plans.
Negotiations to end the war in Ukraine, now in its fifth year, have stalled in recent months amid the U.S. war with Iran. The conflict’s dynamics have shifted in that time, with both sides escalating strikes into each other’s territory.
Last week, Zelensky said airlines should avoid using Russian airspace, saying “the safe days in Russia’s skies are over.”
“Today, we want to warn every airline that uses Russian airspace, every insurer and everyone who still uses Russia’s key airports: Russian airspace is becoming completely unsafe,” he said.
Speaking at a news conference Wednesday, Putin suggested there was little chance a deal would be negotiated, accusing Ukraine of “state terrorism” and saying that “one does not negotiate with terrorists.”
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