Ukraine expects the war to stretch through another cold season and wants allies to step up with a single package covering air defense reinforcements and energy needs, including US LNG. Zelenskyy said the Kyiv talks also covered a postwar "prosperity plan," and that territorial questions should be decided at the "leader level."
Kushner and Witkoff met Zelenskyy in the capital following their Moscow stop. They had not been to Kyiv since being assigned to lead negotiations for President Donald Trump, making this their first return. At the press briefing, Witkoff said, "We had progress in Moscow. We have new ideas, and we brought them to Kyiv."
Saturday's meeting in Moscow ran for more than three hours, a session a Kremlin aide described as "highly useful." Vladimir Putin opened by calling the situation in Ukraine "not a simple one." Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said the talks were "substantive, constructive, extremely frank and trusting." Sputnik, a Russian state news outlet, released a Sept. 5 image depicting Putin welcoming the envoys at the Senate Palace of the Kremlin.
Zelenskyy said the US, Ukraine and Europe agreed to meet again, with the timing and location still to be determined. Witkoff noted he has been to Moscow eight times. On Sunday, they reached Kyiv by rail and were welcomed by Zelenskyy at St. Sophia's Cathedral. Rustem Umerov, who leads Ukraine's foreign intelligence service, posted video of the moment.
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On Friday in the Oval Office, Trump said his envoys were "bringing with them a proposal to end the war," without sharing details. He campaigned in 2024 on delivering a quick resolution, but upon his 2025 return to the White House the conflict has proven harder to settle. Since the US-led war on Iran began in late February, talks had been stalled.
Putin maintains that any deal requires Ukraine to cede the rest of the eastern Donetsk region. Ukraine has repeatedly rejected handing over a fortified belt of cities there, territory Russian forces have not taken despite fighting that dates back to 2014. In recent days, Russia has launched near-continuous strikes using new jet-powered drones that have disrupted daily life in Kyiv. Over the weekend, Russia and Ukraine paused firing on each other's capitals.
Kyiv is tying the next leg of the war to two tangible things you can feel: energy flows and air defenses. That means LNG cargoes and air-defense hardware are not abstract headline fodder - they are the gears that keep lights on and infrastructure intact. With another meeting planned and a temporary pause over the capitals, watch whether energy shipments and security aid actually scale up. That is where pressure shows up in the real economy, from heating costs in winter to the availability of equipment that keeps basic services running.
