US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for their first official visit to Ukraine, opening a new round of diplomacy aimed at ending the war more than four and a half years after Russia’s full-scale invasion.
The visit came a day after Witkoff and Kushner, US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. No breakthrough was announced from the meeting.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready for “constructive” discussions with the US emissaries as Washington seeks to revive peace efforts that had lost momentum over the past six months amid its focus on the Iran war.
“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 on Telegram.
The US envoys arrived by train and were received by senior Ukrainian officials before meeting Zelenskyy at St Sophia Square.
Putin’s foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov described Saturday’s Moscow talks as “constructive, frank and useful,” but disclosed no specific progress.
He said Russia presented its assessment of the battlefield situation, while potential economic cooperation between Moscow and Washington was also discussed.
The diplomacy is unfolding against an intensifying air war, even as fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometre front line remains largely deadlocked.
Despite an agreement by Putin and Zelenskyy to pause attacks on each other’s capitals during the talks, Russia and Ukraine exchanged strikes overnight into Sunday.
Russian attacks across several Ukrainian regions killed one person and wounded at least 10, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. Ukraine said its air defences intercepted 82 of 108 Russian drones and six missiles.
Russian authorities, meanwhile, said a Ukrainian drone strike killed a man and seriously wounded a woman in the Belgorod border region. Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces shot down 258 Ukrainian drones over 14 regions, Russian-occupied Crimea and the Black and Azov seas.
The continuing attacks underscored the challenge facing Washington as it attempts to translate renewed diplomacy into a halt to hostilities.
In Kyiv, hopes for the talks remained mixed. Nataliia Lipei, whose son was killed in December 2022, said the bloodshed had gone on too long and hoped the meetings would finally produce results.
Others remained sceptical after previous diplomatic efforts and short-lived ceasefires failed to stop the fighting.
For Washington, the Kyiv visit now represents the next test of whether its renewed engagement with both Moscow and Kyiv can narrow the differences that have repeatedly frustrated efforts to end the war.