Witkoff, Kushner Shuttle Moscow to Kyiv in Renewed Ukraine Push — SkimNews
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- Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Putin in Moscow on Saturday for over three hours behind closed doors, then held three rounds of talks with Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday—their first official visit to Ukraine—in a renewed bid to end the war.
- Zelensky said discussions covered urgent air defense needs including Patriot systems and a 'winter package' of support for air defense and energy infrastructure before colder months, with the U.S. planning to increase Patriot interceptor missile production next year and Germany expanding its own under existing licensing.
- Russia and Ukraine agreed to pause strikes on each other's capitals while the envoys were present, yet still traded fire overnight into Sunday: Ukraine intercepted 82 of 108 Russian drones plus six missiles, while Russia downed 258 Ukrainian drones across 14 regions, Crimea, and the Black and Azov Seas.
- Zelensky accused Russia of intensifying strikes on Ukrainian cities before Russia's State Duma election later this month, calling the attacks deliberate 'terror' against civilians; Ukraine is now working with 67 domestic companies to develop systems to shoot down Russia's jet-powered drones at scale.
- Putin's foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov said Saturday's Moscow meeting wasn't purely about the war—'economic issues and potentially large, mutually beneficial joint projects for Russia and America were discussed in considerable detail'—though no specific outcomes were announced.
- Kushner said the envoys aim to revive trilateral talks involving Russia and Ukraine directly, a format last used roughly six months earlier, while Witkoff framed the U.S. approach as seeking 'a diplomatic resolution to this conflict, not a kinetic resolution.'
Why it matters: With the Trump administration's peace push stalled for six months amid focus on the Iran war, the immediate stakes for Ukraine are concrete: securing Patriot systems and a 'winter package' covering air defense and energy infrastructure before cold months and Russia's pre-election strike escalation. Zelensky acknowledged the territorial question 'can only be resolved at the level of leaders'—a threshold neither side has shown willingness to cross—while Moscow paired the talks with discussions of large-scale U.S.-Russia economic projects, suggesting the diplomatic track is broadening even as the war grinds on.
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