Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff touched down in Kyiv on September 6, making their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022. The trip came just one day after the pair spent over three hours with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, a sequence of shuttle diplomacy that signals Washington’s most aggressive push yet to broker some kind of resolution to a conflict now grinding through its fifth year.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy publicly welcomed the envoys and said he was ready for constructive dialogue. He also stressed what Ukraine has demanded from day one: meaningful security guarantees and a peace deal that doesn’t simply reward territorial conquest.
A diplomatic sprint, not a marathon
The Kyiv visit wasn’t a solo American affair. National security advisers from the UK, France, and Germany were present or expected in the capital for related discussions, lending the talks a multilateral dimension that previous rounds of US-led diplomacy have sometimes lacked.
Perhaps the most tangible sign that both Moscow and Kyiv are treating these talks seriously: a temporary pause in aerial strikes was observed between the two capitals during the diplomatic visits.
