American envoys Steve Wittkoff and Jared Kushner are holding talks in Kyiv with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, as the Trump administration intensifies its efforts to end the Russia-Ukraine war that has now stretched on for four and a half years. The two American officials traveled from Moscow — flying to Poland and then continuing by train to Kyiv — where they had held three-hour talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin the previous day, though no significant breakthrough toward peace appeared to have been achieved.
Zelensky’s reception of Trump’s envoys
The Ukrainian president received the envoys at St. Sophia’s Cathedral in central Kyiv, near the site where a Russian drone struck on Friday, targeting the offices of Ukrainian security services.
Ahead of the meeting, Zelensky stated that Ukraine is “ready to bring the end of the war closer.”
Previous rounds of US-mediated talks were championed by President Donald Trump, who had campaigned on a promise to quickly end the war — yet those efforts produced little in the way of concrete results.
President Trump hinted on Friday that the United States had a new proposal on the table, though he declined to share further details.
Kremlin foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov described the previous day’s meeting as “extremely useful,” while a White House official told Reuters that the next steps would be announced within the coming weeks.
