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Envoys Head for Talks
US President Donald Trump said he was sending envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff to Moscow and Kyiv with a proposal aimed at ending the war in Ukraine, which has been ongoing for more than four years.
“"They're bringing with them a proposal to end the war,"”
Trump told reporters, "They're bringing with them a proposal to end the war," as he confirmed the trip would seek to gauge whether progress toward peace was possible.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on Telegram that Ukraine would halt airstrikes during the negotiations and called on Moscow to do the same so talks could proceed safely.
Zelensky said, "There will be no airstrikes on our part, and Russia must reciprocally ensure a ceasefire - without its own airstrikes - for the duration needed to conduct these talks," while the Russian presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov did not confirm reports of US officials visiting Moscow.
The diplomatic push comes as a Russian drone hit the headquarters of Ukraine's domestic security service (SBU) in Kyiv on Friday, and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the strike "a major escalation" of the war.
Clashing Signals on Safety
As Trump’s envoys prepared to travel, the Kremlin declined to comment on whether Kushner and Witkoff would meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, while US outlet Axios reported the meeting would occur before the envoys traveled to Kyiv.
Trump said he was sending Kushner and Witkoff to Moscow and Kyiv with a plan to end more than four years of war in Ukraine, but he did not provide details on whether it involved Ukraine giving territory to Russia.
Zelensky warned that Russian strikes on airports in Kyiv and the nearby town of Boryspil were a reaction to preparations for the U.S. side using an aircraft to travel to Ukraine and land at Kyiv Airport or Boryspil Airport.
Zelensky said on the Telegram app, "Russian-Iranian Shaheds (drones) in response to American diplomacy," linking the airport strikes to the diplomatic effort.
The Independent also reported that Russia nevertheless launched overnight strikes on Ukraine, killing four people and injuring five in Kamianske in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, even as Zelensky called for a temporary air truce ahead of the talks.
What’s at Stake Next
The trip is framed as Washington’s latest bid to break a diplomatic stalemate in Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with the US administration seeking to gauge whether progress toward peace is possible.
“"the extent to which the US administration is prepared to invest"”
A senior Ukrainian official told AFP the envoys were due in Kyiv on Sunday, while Axios reported they would meet Putin in Moscow on Saturday and then meet Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday.
Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS that the key question was "the extent to which the US administration is prepared to invest in finding a real solution to the current crisis, considering the realities on the ground," setting a condition for any settlement.
The Independent reported that Russian drones struck Kyiv and the surrounding region, damaging a nine-storey residential building in Boryspil and starting fires on its roof and in an apartment.
In the same period, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the SBU headquarters strike as "a major escalation," while Zelensky said he ordered "an appropriate, tangible response" and, where possible, one that mirrored the strike.