Trump envoys make first visit to Kyiv

KYIV, Ukraine — President Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met with officials in Ukraine on Sunday, their first trip to the country and the second stop on a diplomatic tour aimed at reviving efforts to end the war between Ukraine and Russia.

Witkoff and Kushner came straight from Moscow, where they spoke Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin for several hours. They arrived in Kyiv, the capital, by train, alighting on a platform bearing a sign that read, “PEACE EXPRESS,” and then were taken by motorcade to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

Witkoff and Kushner, who have traveled to Moscow several times, had never before visited Kyiv, despite multiple official invitations.

“We have been waiting for Steve and Jared, Witkoff and Kushner, for a long time,” Zelensky told reporters before greeting the two with hugs.

The men met for about three hours in the gilded halls of Mariinsky Palace, the official residence of Zelensky. They briefly addressed journalists afterward, with Witkoff saying it had been a meaningful, substantive, and encouraging conversation.

“We look forward to continuing this day as long as it takes,” he said, seated across a large table from the Ukrainian delegation. A second round of talks got underway soon after, with national security advisers from Britain, France, and Germany joining the discussion.

Witkoff thanked the Ukrainian delegation, saying they had a “delightful trip” and were having a “great time” in Kyiv, calling the hospitality “unsurpassed.”

The meetings come at a dangerous moment in the nearly five-year conflict. Russia and Ukraine have both been escalating, waging an intensifying air war at least in part to try to gain the upper hand in settlement talks.

That was reflected in the delicate, weekslong discussions around the U.S. envoys’ travel. The United States insisted that Ukraine temporarily cease attacks on Moscow and that Russia temporarily halt attacks on Kyiv while the men were in those cities, according to officials familiar with the diplomatic effort.

Zelensky publicly committed to doing so Friday evening, hours before Witkoff, the president’s special envoy, and Kushner, his son-in-law and frequent negotiator, landed in Moscow. While they were there, the Kremlin announced that Russia would pause strikes on Kyiv for three days.

Few expect a breakthrough from the U.S. envoys’ trip, which has been billed as the first step toward reviving talks mediated by the Trump administration. Those are expected to resume late this month — days after Russia’s parliamentary election and weeks before U.S. midterm elections, Ukraine’s chief negotiator, who greeted the envoys at the train station Sunday, recently told the New York Times.

Trump returned to office last year pledging to end the war in Ukraine swiftly. He enlisted Witkoff and later Kushner to assist with negotiations, which have unfolded in fits and starts.

By February, Witkoff and Russian and Ukrainian negotiators had whittled a 20-point peace plan to two key unresolved points: management of a Russian-occupied nuclear power plant and control of territory that Ukraine still holds in the eastern Donbas region. Then the United States and Israel attacked Iran, shifting the White House’s attention away from resolving the war in Ukraine.

Trump told reporters Friday that Witkoff and Kushner were traveling with a proposal to end the war, but he did not provide further details.

It was unclear whether it was a new proposal or if the men would be pushing to close the gap on the remaining issues.

Few in Ukraine expect a speedy resolution. The Kremlin has given no indication that it is ready to stop the fighting, and Ukrainian officials say they expect Russian forces to try to inflict as much pain on Ukraine as possible during the winter in hopes of pummeling Kyiv into submission at the negotiating table.

The Russian military’s gains on the battlefield have slowed in recent months. Yet the Kremlin’s foreign policy aide, Yuri Ushakov, told reporters that Putin, in his meeting with the Americans, emphasized that Russia’s forces were advancing and would achieve their goals.

This article originally appeared in the New York Times.