Kyiv: US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have held talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv as Washington seeks to restart negotiations aimed at ending Russia's war in Ukraine.
The meeting on Sunday, September 6, came one day after Witkoff and Kushner held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Their visit to Kyiv was their first to Ukraine in the current US diplomatic effort to end the war.
The meetings in Kyiv were described by the participants as substantive and constructive. However, no peace agreement, comprehensive ceasefire or settlement of the main disputed issues was announced.
The latest discussions were aimed at creating conditions for a possible return to negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States. Kushner said the US was working with its partners to create a framework that could lead to lasting peace.
The Moscow meeting came first in the latest diplomatic mission. Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov described the talks as substantive, constructive and very frank. He said the US side had presented ideas about possible ways towards a settlement.
The details of the US proposals have not been fully made public. US President Donald Trump had said before the Kyiv visit that the envoys were carrying a proposal to end the war.
After the Moscow meeting, Witkoff and Kushner travelled to Poland before taking a train to Kyiv, as Ukrainian airspace remains closed because of the war.
In Kyiv, Zelenskyy held several rounds of discussions with the US delegation. He said the talks covered the territorial issue, security guarantees and Ukraine's future after the war.
The territorial issue remains one of the most difficult questions in the negotiations. Zelenskyy said the issue remained relevant and that complex territorial questions would ultimately have to be resolved by the leaders.
Ukraine also stressed the importance of strong security guarantees. Kyiv wants assurances that any future settlement will provide lasting security and help protect the country from another Russian attack.
The talks also focused on Ukraine's preparations for the coming winter. Zelenskyy said Ukraine was seeking support from its partners to strengthen air defence and protect the energy sector.
He specifically highlighted the need for additional air defence support and said Ukraine hoped to secure substantial volumes of US liquefied natural gas.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine was preparing for the possibility that the war would continue into the winter. Kyiv has warned that Russian attacks on energy infrastructure could create serious challenges during the colder months.
European representatives also took part in part of the discussions in Kyiv. They included Emmanuel Bonne, diplomatic adviser to the president of France, Jonathan Powell, national security adviser to the prime minister of Britain, and Günter Sautter, foreign and security policy adviser to the German chancellor.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine, Europe and the United States had agreed to meet again in the near future. No date or location for that meeting had been announced.
The US envoys also discussed the possibility of returning to a trilateral negotiating format involving the United States, Russia and Ukraine. Previous US mediated talks involving the three sides had taken place in Abu Dhabi and Geneva.
The renewed diplomatic effort comes after earlier negotiations failed to produce a settlement while fighting continued. Russia and Ukraine remain divided over territory, security guarantees and the conditions for ending the war.
The diplomatic activity has taken place while military attacks continue. Russia and Ukraine agreed to a temporary pause in strikes against their capitals during the US envoys' visit, but the arrangement was not a comprehensive ceasefire and fighting continued elsewhere.
The meetings in Moscow and Kyiv have reopened a high level diplomatic channel between Washington, Moscow and Kyiv. The United States is now seeking to use its contacts with both governments to bring the sides back to formal negotiations.
For now, however, the central issues remain unresolved. The next stage will depend on whether Russia and Ukraine agree to resume trilateral negotiations and whether the new US proposals can help narrow the differences that have blocked previous efforts to end the war.