US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived at the Kremlin on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the latest attempt to broker a peace deal in Ukraine amid what the two men have described as a deep lack of trust between Moscow and Kyiv.
It is the tenth face-to-face meeting between Witkoff and Putin since the war began, a conflict that has now run longer than the Soviet Union’s fight against Nazi Germany in World War II. The Kremlin talks follow two days of US-led trilateral negotiations in Abu Dhabi, which marked the first direct US-mediated contact between Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in nine months.
Those Abu Dhabi talks produced an agreement on a major prisoner-of-war exchange, expected to take place in the coming weeks, but no breakthrough on the broader terms of a settlement. Asked by a reporter outside a Moscow hotel whether recent progress meant peace was closer, Witkoff did not give a definitive answer.
Negotiators from both sides reported some movement in Abu Dhabi, though the American delegation said major disagreements remain, particularly over territory.
Next stop: Dublin
Witkoff and Kushner are expected to fly on to Dublin later Thursday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, who said Wednesday he hopes for a result by the end of the year — though he added that much depends on how Washington handles Moscow.
President Donald Trump, who once claimed he could end the war in 24 hours, has tasked Witkoff and his own son-in-law Kushner with reviving negotiations he hopes will cement his image as a peacemaker. Last week he said the conflict was close to a
