US envoys call Kyiv talks encouraging after Putin meeting on Ukraine peace

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks with Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv after meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow. The shuttle diplomacy underscored a renewed push for durable peace even as drone and missile attacks continued.Stock photo used for illustrationUS envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held what they described as "encouraging" talks in Kyiv on Sunday, in their first official visit to Ukraine as part of a renewed push to end more than four-and-a-half years of Russia's full-scale invasion. The visit came a day after their meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as Russia and Ukraine continued to exchange aerial attacks.After two rounds of talks with the US officials, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the aim was a "just, fair peace" that would ensure there was "never an opportunity to resume aggression against Ukraine". He thanked the American negotiators for coming to Kyiv by train for their first visit to Ukraine, and said a later round of talks on Sunday would also include national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany.Witkoff said, "We've had very meaningful discussion, substantive, important, and we're very encouraged." Kushner said President Donald Trump saw it as important "not just to figure out how do we end the current war," but to create the conditions for a durable peace. A senior Ukrainian official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak publicly, said much of the discussion focused on "how to get through the winter and what can be done before then".The latest US effort comes at a time when Washington's push to end the fighting has lost momentum, with the Trump administration focused for the past six months on the Iran war. On the ground, the war has remained intense. Russia has recently been using fast-flying, jet-powered drones, air-raid sirens are a regular part of life in Kyiv, and troops have struggled to make progress along the 1,250-kilometre front line. There were no major developments announced after Saturday's closed-door meeting in Moscow, which lasted more than three hours. Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said the talks were constructive, frank and useful, but gave no specific outcomes. He said Moscow had offered its "comprehensive assessment" of the battlefield situation in Ukraine, and added that the discussions were not only about the war. "Economic issues and potentially large, mutually beneficial joint projects for Russia and America were discussed in considerable detail," he said.Putin and Zelenskyy had agreed to pause strikes on each other's capitals while the talks were taking place, but officials said the two sides still traded fire overnight into Sunday. Ukraine's State Emergency Service said Russian attacks across several regions killed one person and wounded at least 10 others. In Zaporizhzhia, drone strikes killed a 74-year-old man and injured three people. In the Khmelnytskyi region, a drone damaged an apartment building and wounded seven people. Ukraine's air force said it intercepted 82 of the 108 drones launched by Russia overnight, along with six missiles. In Russia, local authorities in the Belgorod border region said a man was killed and a woman was seriously wounded when a Ukrainian drone struck a vehicle. Russia's Defence Ministry said its air defences shot down 258 Ukrainian drones overnight over 14 Russian regions, the Russian-occupied Crimean Peninsula, and the waters of the Black and Azov seas.In Kyiv on Sunday, dozens of people gathered for the nationwide 9 am moment of silence for Ukraine's fallen soldiers. Nataliia Lipei, 67, whose son Viktor was killed in December 2022, said she hoped the talks in Moscow and Kyiv would help bring the war to an end. "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," she told The Associated Press.Others were less hopeful. Oleksandr Pastukhov, a 27-year-old video editor who also joined the commemoration, said he did not believe the envoys' visit would change much. "We've already seen delegations like this come here before," he said. "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."In his Sunday prayer, Pope Leo XIV also renewed his appeal for peace in Ukraine and said he hoped the negotiations would deliver results. "I hope that the efforts undertaken in recent days to resume negotiations will bear concrete fruit and make way for diplomacy," he told the faithful in St Peter's Square at the Vatican. As talks continued in Kyiv after the Moscow meeting, fighting on both sides showed how difficult any path to a durable peace remains.With PTI Inputs- EndsPublished By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Sep 6, 2026 21:12 IST