Zelenskyy Begins Talks With U.S. Envoys Before Further Meeting With European Partners

“We have begun negotiations,” Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced on Telegram as he opened talks in Kyiv with White House envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. A second session with European partners was scheduled to follow, bringing representatives from Germany, France and the United Kingdom into the day’s discussions.

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We have begun negotiations.

Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, Kyrylo Budanov, described the agenda as an intense day of important negotiations. “Together, we are all working to achieve a just and lasting peace for Ukraine,” he said. Zelenskyy had earlier told Ukrainian television channel TSN that the American and Ukrainian teams would meet first, before holding a separate session with European partners.

Witkoff and Kushner arrived in Kyiv by train after visiting the Kremlin the previous day to present Vladimir Putin with a proposal to end the war. Zelenskyy said the Russians had not allowed them to arrive by plane, despite a declared halt to attacks on the city until Monday. Ukraine’s negotiating team received the pair at the railway station, including Budanov, Foreign Intelligence Service chief Rustem Umerov, ruling Servant of the People parliamentary leader David Arakhamia and first deputy head of the Presidential Administration Serhii Kyslytsia.

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Together, we are all working to achieve a just and lasting peace for Ukraine.

The American delegation later went to Sofia Square, where Zelenskyy welcomed them. “We had been waiting for Steve and Jared for a long time,” he told TSN, while Witkoff described the trip to Kyiv as “excellent.” It was the first Kyiv visit by Trump’s special envoy and son-in-law since Trump began his second term. The two negotiators had previously traveled to Moscow several times, while Zelenskyy and his team had met them in the United States or other countries.

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We had been waiting for Steve and Jared for a long time.

The peace dialogue has remained stalled for more than six months because of the war involving the United States and Iran and the inability of Russia and Ukraine to narrow their differences. Before the envoys arrived, Zelenskyy wrote that Ukraine was ready for dialogue and would continue to act constructively as it sought to bring the war to an end.

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Excellent.