Witkoff and Kushner to visit Moscow then Kyiv on Sunday
US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Moscow and then Kyiv on Sunday in a renewed push to restart Ukraine peace talks, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Telegram that US President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel to Moscow on Sunday and then continue on to Kyiv. Zelenskyy said the trip was discussed but gave no further details on what the talks would cover.
A US official told CNN on Friday that the two men intend to push for a diplomatic resolution to the war. Russian state news agency TASS reported that Witkoff and Kushner plan to be in Moscow and Kyiv on September 5-6.
Long-running mediators
Witkoff and Kushner have been the central US figures in the stalled effort to broker peace between Russia and Ukraine. Witkoff traveled to Moscow multiple times in 2025 and early 2026 for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and has met Zelenskyy in the United States, Germany and France. The upcoming trip will mark their first visit to Kyiv.
After Trump took office again in early 2025, Washington launched an intensive campaign for a Russia-Ukraine settlement built around territorial compromises, security guarantees for Ukraine and postwar reconstruction. The US initially pressured Kyiv heavily to accept the proposed terms, but the negotiations collapsed by early 2026.
In recent weeks Washington has stepped up outreach to Moscow again. CIA Director John Ratcliffe visited the Russian capital in late August, using the trip to press Russia to scale back its military and economic support for Iran and to avoid escalating tensions with America's NATO allies.
