Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow on Saturday carrying what President Donald Trump described as a proposal to end the war in Ukraine, as part of Witkoff Kushner Ukraine peace talks that will span both the Russian capital and Kyiv before the weekend is out.
The two envoys were greeted at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport by Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev. Flight tracking data showed a US government plane had travelled from Helsinki, Finland, having flown there from the United States earlier in the day. After their Moscow meetings, they are due to travel to Kyiv on Sunday, which will mark their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Trump returned to office.
Capitals agree to pause strikes during the visit
Russia and Ukraine agreed on Saturday to pause strikes on each other’s capitals for the duration of the envoys’ visit, CBS News reported. Russian state media, citing the Kremlin, said Putin had ordered no strikes on Kyiv for three days starting at midnight on Saturday night.
Earlier on Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russia had fired what he called ‘demonstrative’ strikes on airports in Kyiv and Boryspil overnight, ahead of the planned visit. He said: ‘Clearly, these Russian strikes on the airports are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility of the US side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine and land at Kyiv Airport or Boryspil Airport.’
Ukraine’s airspace has been closed since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022. Zelensky said on Friday he would guarantee the safety of Russian airspace during the envoys’ visit and called on Russia to do the same for Ukraine. He also said an overnight Russian strike on a civilian building in the Dnipro region killed four people and injured five others.
Witkoff Kushner Ukraine peace talks follow string of failed efforts
Axios reported the two envoys would separately meet both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky. The two men have visited Moscow on multiple occasions since Trump returned to office, and delegations from Ukraine have attended talks in the United States over the past 18 months.
It was not their first time sitting down with Putin. In December 2025, Witkoff and Kushner met with the Russian president for five hours in talks that a Russian official characterised as ‘constructive’, though the sessions did not lead to a breakthrough, CBS News reported.
Sunday’s Kyiv leg of the trip is expected to involve a wider group of participants. According to the House of Commons Library, National Security Advisers from France, the United Kingdom and Germany attended part of the talks in Kyiv, underscoring European interest in any settlement framework that emerges from the latest round of diplomacy.
Despite the diplomatic traffic, key disagreements between the warring sides remain. Disputes over territory and security guarantees for Ukraine have so far blocked any deal. European allies held their own discussions in Paris, but those talks also ended without a breakthrough. US efforts and allied engagement have yet to produce a ceasefire.
Growing frustration on both sides
The backdrop to Saturday’s visit is one of mounting impatience in both Kyiv and Moscow. According to The New Voice of Ukraine, Russian officials increasingly see Witkoff as partly responsible for the failure to achieve a breakthrough at the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska in 2025, adding a layer of tension to what Washington has framed as a fresh attempt at progress.
The current visit comes just over a week after John Ratcliffe, head of the CIA, made a rare trip to Moscow. There was no official comment from Washington or the Kremlin on what was discussed at that meeting. Trump, speaking last week, described it as ‘semi-routine’.
On the ground, both sides have intensified their aerial campaigns in recent months. Ukraine has said it has struggled to repel Russian attacks due to a shortage of interceptor missiles, while Kyiv has directed its own strikes at Russian economic infrastructure. Trump told reporters on Friday that Witkoff and Kushner were ‘bringing with them a proposal to end the war’, though no details of its contents have been made public ahead of the Kyiv leg of the trip on Sunday.
