US Envoys Push Trilateral Ukraine-Russia Talks After Kyiv Rounds

After three Kyiv rounds, Witkoff and Kushner are pushing Russia and Ukraine into new trilateral talks, with no breakthrough yet announced.

US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner held two rounds of talks with Ukrainian officials on Sunday, followed by a third round that included representatives from the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, according to Kyrylo Budanov, head of the Office of the Ukrainian Presidency. It was the envoys' first visit to Kyiv since the war began, and it came directly after a three-hour meeting with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday, followed by dinner with the Russian leader. No major breakthrough was announced, but Witkoff told reporters he was "confident that there'll be a good resolution here." Zelensky called all three rounds "very substantive" and said several new ideas were discussed.

The central new proposal from the envoys is a return to the trilateral format, bringing the US, Russia, and Ukraine to the table together. "One thing Steve (Witkoff) and I really thought would be productive is to go back to the trilateral format, which we were able to do about six months ago," Kushner said in a news conference after the talks. He argued the format works because it lets all parties communicate directly, without Washington speaking for either side, and said the US had discussed the idea with both parties and hoped for progress "very soon." Zelensky agreed that everything possible should be done to hold trilateral meetings — potentially plus European partners — adding, "We'll see what Russia agrees to." Previous trilateral rounds failed to resolve territory and security guarantees.

Witkoff and Kushner have visited Moscow repeatedly as peace envoys, but Sunday marked their first trip to Kyiv in that capacity — a visit Ukraine's leadership had long sought. The envoys were taken on a tour of St. Sophia's Cathedral, a UNESCO World Heritage site whose windows were damaged in a Russian strike on the SBU security service headquarters on Friday, a detail reported by CNN. Zelensky thanked Trump for enabling the trip "from a security standpoint" and said Ukraine had been "waiting a long time" for the visit. Kushner told UNITED24 Media that he and Witkoff are working to build a broader "peace package" aimed at a durable end to the war, and Witkoff said both Russia and Ukraine will need to make compromises.

A 72-hour temporary truce halting airstrikes on Kyiv and Moscow began at midnight Friday into Saturday to cover the weekend of diplomacy. The truce applied only to the two capitals: according to Ukraine's Air Force, cited by CNN, Russia launched 108 Shahed-type drones overnight into Sunday while avoiding Kyiv, and strikes hit 11 locations across Ukraine. CNN reports that 10 Ukrainian civilians were killed and 65 injured over the past 24 hours, with at least three deaths in the latest strikes on the Kyiv region. Ukraine kept up long-range attacks too — Lee Enterprises reports it struck the Ryazan oil refinery, about 300 miles inside Russia, overnight, causing a fire, and confirmed hits on an airfield in Rostov-on-Don and two air defense systems.

Zelensky warned that the war looks set to continue into the winter and stressed that an acute shortage of air defense interceptors is Ukraine's "weak spot," leaving it vulnerable to ballistic missile attacks. He said the US side will increase production volumes of Patriot anti-ballistic missiles next year and that he is confident volumes will grow. Winter support was a major focus of the talks: a senior Ukrainian official told CBS News that much of the discussion centered on "how to get through the winter and what can be done before then." Russia is expected to bomb Ukraine's power grid again, and Zelensky said Ukraine needs air defense and energy support from American and European partners to face that campaign.

Zelensky said Ukraine, Europe, and the US plan to meet again "in the near future," while Witkoff told reporters he hoped a new round of US-mediated Ukraine-Russia talks would be announced "in short order." A White House official said both the Moscow and Kyiv discussions produced "substantive plans for next steps, which will be announced in the coming weeks." The hardest issues remain unresolved: Zelensky called Donbas "the question of this war," with Russia demanding Ukrainian withdrawal from towns it still controls and Kyiv refusing, and Ukraine continues to insist on firm security guarantees and a post-war "prosperity plan" as conditions for any settlement. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described the Moscow talks as "useful."