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Witkoff and Kushner press for a return to three-way talks after their first visit to Kyiv

By Staff Writer  |  7 September 2026

The two American envoys met President Zelenskyy twice on Sunday, a day after three hours with President Putin in Moscow, then sat down with the British, French and German national security advisers. No breakthrough was announced. The proposal on the table is a format, not a settlement.

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday morning from Moscow, where they had spent more than three hours with President Vladimir Putin on Saturday. It was their first visit to the Ukrainian capital in their capacity as American negotiators, and one Ukraine's leadership had sought for a long time. They met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his senior officials twice, the first round lasting about three hours and including a working lunch, and then joined a third meeting with the national security advisers of Britain, France and Germany.

The Kremlin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, had described Saturday's talks as highly useful and said they ranged beyond the battlefield to possible joint economic ventures between Russia and the United States, without saying what, if anything, had been agreed. A White House official said next steps would be announced in the coming weeks.

Security guarantees are needed. A dignified postwar peace is needed. Our proposals have been drawn up.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy, President of Ukraine

Back to three chairs

What the envoys put forward in Kyiv was procedural. At a press conference after the talks, Mr Kushner said that direct talks between the three parties had worked before and should be tried again.

One thing Steve (Witkoff) and I really thought would be productive is to go back to the trilateral format, which we were able to do about six months ago

Jared Kushner, United States special envoy

He said the format allowed the parties to speak to each other directly rather than through Washington, that in the earlier rounds everyone had spoken Russian to one another and discussed the issues in a friendly manner, and that the United States had raised the idea with both sides and hoped for progress on it soon. Mr Witkoff described the day's discussions as substantive and important and said he was very encouraged, and later that he was confident there would be a good resolution. Mr Zelenskyy said several new ideas had been discussed in good discussions, without saying what they were, and that Ukraine must do everything possible to ensure that trilateral meetings take place, with or without its European partners in the room, and would see what Russia agreed to.

The earlier trilateral rounds did not resolve the two questions that have stalled every round since: territory, where Russia demands Ukraine's withdrawal from the belt of towns it still holds in Donbas and Kyiv refuses, and security guarantees, which Ukraine wants from Europe and the United States in a form that would deter another invasion.

A pause in one city, not along the line

Russia had said it would pause its strikes on Kyiv until Monday to cover the visit, after two weeks in which the capital was hit day and night by missiles and drones, including an attack on Friday on the headquarters of the security service. Ukraine said it would halt its strikes on Moscow in return. The pause did not reach the rest of the 1,200 kilometre front. Russia bombarded other Ukrainian cities on Saturday, and Ukraine said on Sunday that it had struck the Ryazan oil refinery, about 480 kilometres inside Russia, overnight and started a fire.

Both sides have leaned on long-range strikes through the summer while the ground war has stayed largely static. Ukrainian drones have hit Russian refineries, oil terminals and the warehouses of an online retailer, and fuel shortages have followed inside Russia. Moscow has said it will damage Ukraine's power grid again this winter, and Kyiv's stock of American-supplied Patriot interceptors is running down.

Mr Zelenskyy has said there is a window for a settlement before Washington turns to its own presidential election next year. Sunday produced a proposal to change the shape of the table. Whether Moscow will sit at it, and on what terms, is the question the next few weeks will answer.