Kushner and Witkoff leave Kyiv without announcing progress toward peace

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff made their first visit to Kyiv and left without announcing either a narrowing of differences between Ukraine and Russia or a concrete agreement to move toward peace.

The White House envoys arrived by train on Sunday morning, a day after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin and other Kremlin negotiators in Moscow. Witkoff said the Moscow meeting had been his eighth, while Kushner had made three visits there. Their absence from Kyiv until now had caused unease among Ukrainians, who saw a contrast in the envoys’ repeated trips to Moscow.

In Kyiv, Kushner and Witkoff met Zelenskyy and national security advisers from Germany, France and the United Kingdom, which support Kyiv in the process. They said one purpose of the meeting was to present the Ukrainian president and his negotiators with the demands Putin had raised the previous day.

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From President Putin’s perspective, I think he has certain objectives. He expresses what he wants to achieve, but obviously he has some aspirations for his country that can also be achieved when this is over.

“From President Putin’s perspective, I think he has certain objectives. He expresses what he wants to achieve, but obviously he has some aspirations for his country that can also be achieved when this is over,” Kushner said. The comment appeared to refer to Moscow’s demand that the United States resume business with Russia as it did before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy gave no details about possible new ideas for resolving disagreements over the Donbas, which Russia has conquered by more than 80% and Putin has claimed in full as a condition for ending the war. Asked when a peace deal might come, Kushner said, “The answer is that one never knows with these agreements. It’s not done until it’s done, and it can happen quickly or it can take longer, but it won’t happen if we don’t have these meetings and these dialogues again and again.” The only agreement announced involved the Ukrainian, European and U.S. participants, who plan to meet again in the coming weeks.

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The answer is that one never knows with these agreements. It’s not done until it’s done, and it can happen quickly or it can take longer, but it won’t happen if we don’t have these meetings and these dialogues again and again.