KYIV, Ukraine, Sept 6 – U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for their first official visit to Ukraine, bringing Washington’s renewed diplomatic effort to end the war directly to the Ukrainian capital after holding lengthy talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
The visit comes more than four and a half years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and at a time when fighting remains intense despite continuing efforts to find a path toward a negotiated settlement. Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Kyiv by train and were welcomed at the station by senior Ukrainian officials before later meeting President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at a ceremony in St. Sophia Square.
Zelenskyy said his government was prepared to engage constructively with the American representatives and stressed that Ukraine wanted the diplomatic process to produce meaningful results.
In a message posted on Telegram, the Ukrainian president said Kyiv’s proposals were ready and emphasized that any agreement must address the country’s future security and create the conditions for a lasting peace.
“We are interested in bringing the end of the war closer. Peace is needed. Security guarantees are needed. A just and sustainable postwar peace is needed. Our proposals are prepared,” Zelenskyy said.
The arrival of the two envoys follows their meeting with Putin in Moscow on Saturday. The discussions took place as Russia and Ukraine continued exchanging major aerial attacks, highlighting the difficulty of separating diplomatic negotiations from the realities of a war that remains active across a vast front line.
Witkoff and Kushner, who is also U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, last publicly known visit to Moscow was in January, when they also held talks with Putin at the Kremlin.
Washington’s efforts to push for an end to the Ukraine war have slowed in recent months as the Trump administration devoted significant attention to the conflict involving Iran. The latest meetings in Moscow and Kyiv, however, indicate a renewed attempt to bring the two sides closer to a possible settlement.
Moscow Meeting Produces No Immediate Breakthrough
Saturday’s meeting between the American envoys and Putin lasted for more than three hours behind closed doors. Despite expectations surrounding the discussions, neither side announced a significant breakthrough after the talks ended.
Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s foreign policy adviser, described the meeting as constructive, frank and useful. He did not disclose specific agreements or suggest that the discussions had produced a major change in the negotiating positions of Moscow or Washington.
According to Ushakov, Russian officials provided the Americans with what he described as a comprehensive assessment of the military situation in Ukraine. However, the agenda extended beyond the battlefield and the search for an end to the war.
Ushakov said economic issues were also discussed, including the possibility of major projects that could potentially benefit both Russia and the United States.
“Potentially large, mutually beneficial joint projects for Russia and America were discussed in considerable detail,” he said.
The inclusion of economic matters underlined the broad nature of the discussions, although it remained unclear whether any concrete arrangements were made during the Moscow meeting.
For Ukraine, the question of security guarantees remains central to any future peace agreement. Kyiv has repeatedly argued that a lasting settlement cannot simply pause the fighting but must also protect the country from another large-scale Russian attack.
The diplomatic challenge has become even more complicated because the military situation remains fluid. Neither Russia nor Ukraine has achieved a decisive breakthrough along the approximately 1,250-kilometer, or 775-mile, front line, while both countries have increasingly relied on drones and missiles to strike targets far from the battlefield.
The air war has become a major feature of daily life, particularly for civilians in Ukrainian cities. Kyiv residents have grown accustomed to air-raid sirens, while Russian forces have expanded their use of drones, including fast-moving jet-powered models.
Although Putin and Zelenskyy had agreed to temporarily halt strikes on each other’s capitals while negotiations continued, officials reported that attacks continued overnight into Sunday.
The developments demonstrated how fragile even limited understandings can be while the wider conflict remains unresolved.
Deadly Overnight Attacks Underscore the Stakes of Peace Talks
Russian attacks across several Ukrainian regions killed one person and wounded at least 10 others overnight, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
In the southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, drone strikes killed a 74-year-old man and injured three other people. In the Khmelnytskyi region, another drone attack damaged an apartment building and wounded seven people.
Ukraine’s air force said its defenses intercepted 82 of the 108 drones launched by Russia overnight, as well as six missiles. The figures reflected the continued scale of Russia’s aerial operations and the pressure placed on Ukrainian air defenses.
Russia also reported casualties from Ukrainian attacks.
In the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border, local authorities said a Ukrainian drone struck a vehicle, killing a man and seriously injuring a woman.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defense systems shot down 258 Ukrainian drones overnight across 14 Russian regions. The ministry said drones were also intercepted over Russian-controlled Crimea and above the waters of the Black and Azov Seas.
The continued exchange of attacks has created a difficult backdrop for the diplomatic initiative involving Witkoff and Kushner. Even as officials discuss peace and possible future security arrangements, civilians and soldiers on both sides remain exposed to the dangers of the conflict.
In Kyiv, the human cost of the war was visible again on Sunday when dozens of people gathered for Ukraine’s nationwide 9 a.m. moment of silence in honor of soldiers who have died defending the country.
The daily observance has become a deeply emotional ritual in cities across Ukraine.
Among those attending was 67-year-old Nataliia Lipei, whose son, Viktor, was killed in December 2022. Despite her health problems, she has traveled from city to city to take part in the commemorations.
Lipei said she hoped the diplomatic meetings in Moscow and Kyiv would finally contribute to ending the war after years of bloodshed.
“I hope these steps and these meetings will definitely produce results, because there has been so much bloodshed and so many deaths here that we have to stop all of this,” she said.
Others in Kyiv expressed far less confidence that the latest diplomatic mission would change the course of the war.
Oleksandr Pastukhov, a 27-year-old video editor who also joined the commemoration, said previous visits by international delegations had given Ukrainians little reason to expect a rapid breakthrough.
“We’ve already seen delegations like this come here before,” he said. “We’ve seen this so-called ceasefire for three days, which ended after just a couple of hours, and now we’re supposed to naively think that two people will come and change something.”
His skepticism reflects the broader uncertainty surrounding the latest diplomatic effort. While the meetings between the U.S. envoys, Russian officials and Ukraine’s leadership have created fresh expectations, there is still no clear indication that Moscow and Kyiv are close to resolving their most serious differences.
For now, the arrival of Witkoff and Kushner in Kyiv represents another important stage in Washington’s attempt to revive diplomacy. Whether the discussions can produce a framework acceptable to both Ukraine and Russia remains uncertain.
As negotiations continue, the conflict itself shows no immediate sign of stopping, leaving hopes for peace closely tied to the ability of diplomats to turn high-level meetings into concrete and lasting agreements.