U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Ukraine for negotiations to end the yearslong war on Sunday, a day after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X before talks began that “peace is needed.”
“Security guarantees are needed,” Zelenskyy said. “A dignified character of the postwar peace is needed. Our proposals are ready.”
Witkoff said at a press conference following the talks that he feels “really feel good about what has happened in the conversations in Moscow, and now the conversations here.”
“We’ve met quite a bit of people in Ukraine today, in Kyiv today, and their resiliency is so pronounced, and it’s special,” he said. “You’ve been brave, and we commend you.”
President Donald Trump, Kushner said, wants to achieve is a situation where there’s “no hostilities” between Russia and Ukraine.
“What President Trump’s tasked Steve and myself with doing is really creating a peace package,” Kushner said at the conference. “There’s a lot of people in the U.S. government under the president, the vice president, Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio, and many more working on trying to construct this.”
Something Kushner said he and Witkoff thought would be productive is to have trilateral talks, he said.
“We’ve spoken with both parties, and so hopefully we’ll have progress on that very soon,” Kushner said. “I think that’s important to talk about the big issues, obviously, but also some of the de-escalatory issues that could be done as well.”
A White House official told NBC News “substantive plans for the next steps” to stop the fighting were the focus of Sunday’s negotiations in Russia. These next steps are set to be announced in the coming weeks, the official said to NBC.
Officials with the National Security Council, as well as the State and Treasury Departments, were at Saturday’s meeting, which was more than three hours long, the official said.
An aide for Putin, Yury Ushakov, told Russian state media the meeting was conducted in an “informal setting at the dining table.” He called it “substantive, constructive, extremely frank and trusting.”
The Associated Press reported Ushakov said that the talks weren’t only about the war, but also “economic issues.”
“Potentially large, mutually beneficial joint projects for Russia and America were discussed in considerable detail,” Ushakov said.
Pope Leo XIV commented on the talks in a statement Sunday, where he said his “heart is united with the suffering of the people of #Ukraine, who have lived in anguish and fear for years.”
“I renew my appeal to put an end to the violence, halt the destruction, and open hearts to dialogue and #peace! I hope that the efforts undertaken in recent days to resume negotiations will bear concrete fruit and make room for diplomacy,” he said on X. “Let us #PrayTogether to the Lord that concord may prevail in every conflict throughout the world.”
Attacks continue overnight
Because of the negotiations, both Russia and Ukraine said they would suspend strikes on each other for three days, with Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov saying the pause started at midnight Saturday, according to state-run TASS News Agency.
Officials said the two sides still exchanged fire.
CNN, which reported that the ceasefire was only applicable to the two countries’ capital cities, said 10 civilians from Ukraine were killed in the past 24 hours in Russian attacks, and 65 were injured. There were airstrikes recorded in 11 Ukrainian locations, and a Russian strike also caused a fire at an infrastructure facility in the Kyiv region, CNN wrote.
A 74-year-old man died during overnight drone strikes in Zaporizhzhia, with three people injured, and a drone damaged an apartment building and wounded seven people in the Khmelnytskyi region, the AP reported.
The Ukrainian air force said it intercepted 82 drones and six missiles launched by Russia. A total of 108 were deployed, the air force said.
Meanwhile, authorities in Russia’s Belgorod border region said a man was killed after a drone from Ukraine struck a vehicle, the AP reported.
On Sunday, the AP wrote, the Russian Defense Ministry said air defenses shot down 258 Ukrainian drones. These went over 14 Russian regions, the Crimean Peninsula and the Black and Azov Seas, the Defense Ministry said.