US negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are due to travel to Russia and Ukraine this weekend as Washington steps up efforts to broker an end to the war between Moscow and Kyiv.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would meet the two US envoys on Sunday after they hold talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday.
Witkoff and Kushner, who is President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, have been central to the administration’s attempts to negotiate a peace agreement. The two sides remain divided over several major issues, particularly territory and the conditions for ending the conflict.
Trump told reporters that the US representatives would be carrying a proposal aimed at bringing the war to an end.
The planned meetings come as fighting continues across Ukraine. Zelensky said on Friday that a Russian drone had struck the office of SBU security chief Oleksandr Poklad in Kyiv. Poklad was apparently unharmed in the incident.
Zelensky said he had instructed Poklad, who leads Ukraine’s security service, to respond “adequately” to the attack.
Further violence was reported on Saturday in the southeastern city of Kamianske. Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk regional military administration, said a Russian strike killed four people and wounded five others.
The upcoming visit will mark a significant change for Witkoff and Kushner, who have travelled to Russia several times during the diplomatic effort. Their planned talks in Ukraine would be their first visit to the country as part of the current negotiations.
Zelensky said Ukraine would ensure the safety of Russian airspace during the US delegation’s visit and called on Moscow to provide the same protection for Ukrainian airspace.
Russia’s state news agency Tass, citing an unnamed source, reported that Witkoff and Kushner were expected to travel to Moscow and then Kyiv between September 5 and 6.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to publicly confirm the schedule. He told reporters that the Kremlin would announce the contacts once they take place.
Putin has indicated that Moscow remains open to negotiations. Speaking at an international economic forum on Thursday, he said there were “chances” for a peace agreement but insisted that Russia and Ukraine must first reach an understanding themselves.
At the same time, Putin showed no indication that Russia would abandon its demands for further territorial concessions from Ukraine.
Kyiv and its European allies have repeatedly rejected those conditions, arguing that accepting them would amount to surrender.
The meetings in Moscow and Kyiv could provide a new test of whether Washington can narrow the differences between the two sides and move the long-running conflict toward a negotiated settlement.
