U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday, marking their first official visit to Ukraine in over four and a half years since Russia's full-scale invasion. The trip follows meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday, as both nations have recently engaged in escalating aerial attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated Sunday that his government is prepared for "constructive" discussions with the U.S. emissaries. "We are interested in bringing the end of the war closer. Peace is needed. Security guarantees are needed. A just and sustainable postwar peace is needed. Our proposals are prepared," Zelenskyy posted on Telegram. The envoys arrived by train and were met by high-ranking Ukrainian officials before a meeting with Zelenskyy in St. Sophia Square.
The U.S. push to end the fighting has seen its momentum wane, with the Trump administration reportedly focused on the Iran war for the preceding six months. Witkoff and Kushner's last known visit to Moscow was in January, where they also held discussions with Putin.
Moscow Talks
Saturday's meeting in Moscow, which lasted over three hours behind closed doors, concluded without any major announcements. Putin's foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, characterized the talks as constructive, frank, and useful, though he did not disclose specific outcomes. Ushakov stated that while Moscow offered its "comprehensive assessment" of the battlefield situation in Ukraine, the discussions also encompassed "economic issues and potentially large, mutually beneficial joint projects for Russia and America."
Intensified Air War
The air war between Russia and Ukraine has intensified as ground troops have struggled to gain significant progress along the front lines. Russia has recently deployed jet-powered drones, and air-raid sirens have become a regular occurrence in Kyiv. Both Putin and Zelenskyy had agreed to a pause in strikes on each other's capitals during the ongoing talks. However, exchanges of fire were reported overnight into Sunday.
According to Ukraine's State Emergency Service, Russian attacks across multiple Ukrainian regions resulted in one death and at least 10 injuries overnight into Sunday. In Zaporizhzhia, drone strikes killed a 74-year-old man and wounded three others, while another drone damaged an apartment building in the Khmelnytskyi region, injuring seven people.
Ukraine's air force reported intercepting 82 of 108 drones launched by Russia overnight, along with six missiles. Conversely, local authorities in Russia's Belgorod border region stated that a Ukrainian drone strike on a vehicle killed one man and seriously wounded a woman. Russia's Defense Ministry claimed its air defenses shot down 258 Ukrainian drones over 14 Russian regions, the Crimean Peninsula, and the Black and Azov Seas overnight.
Public Sentiment
In Kyiv on Sunday, dozens gathered for a moment of silence to honor Ukraine's fallen soldiers. Nataliia Lipei, 67, whose son was killed in December 2022, expressed hope that the talks in Moscow and Kyiv would lead to an end to the war. "I hope these steps and these meetings will definitely produce results, because there has been so much bloodshed and so many deaths here that we have to stop all of this," Lipei told The Associated Press.
Others remained skeptical. Oleksandr Pastukhov, a 27-year-old video editor, expressed doubt that the envoys' visit would bring about significant change, recalling previous delegations and a short-lived ceasefire. "We've already seen delegations like this come here before. We've seen this so-called ceasefire for three days, which ended after just a couple of hours, and now we're supposed to naively think that two people will come and change something."