US President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held more than four hours of talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kyiv on September 6, a day after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow, as Washington seeks to revive efforts to end the four-year-old war.


The talks, however, failed to produce a breakthrough.


Witkoff said he felt “good” about the discussions “in Moscow and now here” in Kyiv, while Kushner said the US envoys had presented “new ideas” without elaborating.


People familiar with the talks told the Financial Times (FT) that the Americans brought updated versions of earlier peace proposals, revised to reflect circumstances that have changed since negotiations stalled in February following the outbreak of the US war with Iran.


The people said the envoys had few fundamentally new proposals and were instead seeking to revive earlier ideas and narrow differences between Kyiv and Moscow.


Territory in the Donbas remains one of the central sticking points. Russia claims the eastern region, around 75% of which it controls, while Zelenskyy has repeatedly rejected surrendering Ukrainian-held territory.


After the talks, Zelenskyy acknowledged that territorial issues had been discussed but said the matter should be addressed “at the level of leaders”.


“The question of Donbas isn’t just about Donbas,” he said. “It is, between us, the question of the entire war.”


People familiar with the discussions said there was broad recognition that the war was unlikely to end before winter, although the US envoys indicated that progress could still be made before then.


Kushner said Washington hoped to resume trilateral negotiations involving Russia, Ukraine and the US that were suspended after the Iran war began.


The visit came amid intensified Russian drone attacks on Kyiv and growing concerns over Ukraine’s ability to withstand another difficult winter. Putin has continued to insist that any settlement must recognise the “realities on the ground” and has rejected a ceasefire as a precursor to negotiations.


By Vafa Guliyeva