US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner pushed for a return to trilateral talks between the US, Russia and Ukraine on Sunday after “substantive” discussions with Ukrainian officials in Kyiv.
It marks their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since the war began and comes amid near-constant Russian missile and drone strikes on the city. Although no major breakthroughs were announced after Sunday’s talks, Witkoff said he was “confident that there’ll be a good resolution here.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said “several new ideas” were discussed during “good discussions” with the US, but did not expand on what those ideas were.
The talks followed intensive meetings Witkoff and Kushner held with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, part of Washington’s renewed push to end the war in Ukraine.
“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,” Kushner said in a news conference following the talks in Kyiv
Kushner said he prefers trilateral talks as they allow all parties to communicate directly, without the US having to speak for Ukraine or Russia. “Everyone was speaking, you know, in Russian to each other and really discussing these issues in a very actually friendly manner, all in Russian,” he said of previous rounds of trilateral negotiations.
He added that the US had spoken with both parties about this idea, adding that “hopefully we’ll have progress on that very soon.” Previous trilateral talks mediated by the US have failed to resolve key issues such as territory and security guarantees for Ukraine.
Zelensky agreed, saying that “we must do everything possible to ensure that trilateral meetings take place – or trilateral meetings plus our European partners. We’ll see what Russia agrees to.”
Speaking about his recent visit to Russia, Witkoff said his team had a “good, concrete conversation” with Putin.
“If you don’t have relationships with both sides, and you have poor communication, then you probably have very, very little chance of getting to a peaceful resolution,” Witkoff said.
Three rounds of talks
The US-Ukraine talks concluded on Sunday evening local time after two rounds of discussion, followed by a third round of negotiations with European representatives. Officials from the United Kingdom, France and Germany were present in Kyiv, according to Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency.
Zelensky said Ukraine, Europe and the US planned to meet again “in the near future.”
“We want to prevent loss of life, we want this war to end fairly for all of us, and we want it to end in such a way that Russia’s aggression against Ukraine is never repeated,” Zelensky said during an earlier press briefing following the first round of talks.
“I believe that every meeting like this will bring us closer to that goal,” he added.
T-shirts with the slogan “Kyiv regime” were prepared by the Ukrainian president as gifts for attendees of the talks, according to Serhiy Nykyforov, Zelensky’s press secretary.
Upon their arrival in the Ukrainian capital, the US envoys were taken on a tour of a cathedral in central Kyiv damaged in Russian attacks. St. Sophia’s Cathedral, which is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List, sustained damage to its windows and window frames. On Friday, CNN reported on a Russian strike hitting Ukraine’s Security Service headquarters in Kyiv, which also affected the cathedral.
Ahead of their meeting, the Ukrainian president thanked Trump for allowing the trip to happen “from a security standpoint,” adding that Ukraine had been “waiting a long time” for Witkoff and Kushner’s visit.
Zelensky stressed on Sunday that an acute shortage of air defense interceptors has left Ukraine vulnerable to ballistic missile attacks, calling it the country’s “weak spot.”
“The US side will increase production volumes of Patriot anti-ballistic missiles next year,” Zelensky said. “We’re counting on such systems to defend our country, so we’ll increase the volume next year – I’m confident of that.”
Journey to Kyiv
Witkoff and Kushner made a stop in the Polish city of Rzeszow en route from Moscow to Kyiv, Russian state media outlet TASS reported. The plane landed at 1:31 a.m. local time.
The US envoys continued their journey to Kyiv by rail, with Witkoff later saying, “I didn’t like the train. I loved the train.”
Russia and Ukraine have enacted a 72-hour temporary truce for the duration of the US envoys’ visits, specifically halting airstrikes on each other’s capitals, Kyiv and Moscow. The halt in strikes began at midnight on Friday into Saturday and will last for the duration of the weekend of diplomacy.
The truce applies only to the two capitals. In overnight attacks into Sunday, Russia continued its bombardment of Ukraine while avoiding the city of Kyiv. According to Ukraine’s Air Force, Russian forces launched 108 Shahed-type drones from Russia, while at least three people were killed in the latest strikes and infrastructure was hit in the Kyiv region.
Russian airstrikes were recorded in 11 locations across Ukraine, while a large-scale fire has been extinguished at an infrastructure facility in Kyiv region as a result of a Russian strike.
In total, 10 Ukrainian civilians have been killed over the past 24 hours, and a further 65 have been injured.
Witkoff and Kushner began their whirlwind weekend of diplomacy with a three-hour meeting with Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday afternoon. The negotiations were followed by dinner with the Russian leader, according to a Kremlin press briefing.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov later described the talks as “useful” and said the American representatives had “prepared seriously for this trip.” He said the US team expressed interest in ending hostilities as quickly as possible and offered “a whole series of considerations regarding possible paths to a settlement.”
A White House official said both sides “discussed substantive plans for next steps, which will be announced in the coming weeks.”
CNN’s Tim Lister, Charlotte Reck, Jonny Hallam and Victoria Butenko contributed to this report.
