U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, seeking to advance Ukraine peace efforts after negotiations in Abu Dhabi ended without a major breakthrough beyond a prisoner-exchange agreement.

The Moscow meeting lasted about two hours, The Associated Press reported in a story published by NPR. The envoys were then scheduled to travel to Dublin for discussions with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Witkoff and Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, had brokered two days of U.S.-mediated talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in the United Arab Emirates. Those negotiations, which ended Wednesday, were the first direct discussions between representatives of Moscow and Kyiv in nine months. The number of prisoners to be exchanged had not been announced.

Kushner said the delegations had “agreed on many of the principles, but are still apart on some of the way to accomplish” peace.

One purpose of the Kremlin visit was to seek Putin’s approval for European representatives to join discussions that also address the continent’s broader security arrangements, Kushner said. Washington and Zelenskyy want Europe to appoint a single negotiator to engage with Moscow.

Russia opposes European participation in direct negotiations, arguing that European countries are financing and supplying Ukraine’s military effort.

Putin also reiterated his opposition to any deployment of European troops in Ukraine after a ceasefire. He said Russia would consider those forces a security threat and legitimate targets. “In other words, the war would resume immediately,” he said.

Territory remained another dividing line. Putin said a prospective peace agreement should recognize Russia’s claimed border as encompassing four Ukrainian regions Moscow annexed in 2022 but has never fully controlled. Zelenskyy, speaking in Dublin, welcomed the proposed prisoner exchange but insisted Ukraine would not surrender Russian-occupied territory for peace.

Zelenskyy was in Ireland for a gathering of more than 40 European countries, also attended by NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte. Rutte said the United States, Europe and Ukraine were “very much aligned” on security guarantees, while stressing that a peace agreement or ceasefire was still needed.

Fighting continued along the roughly 1,200-kilometre front as the diplomatic meetings proceeded.

Sources