US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Kiev on Sunday as the Trump administration renewed its push to end Russia's four-and-a-half-year war with Ukraine.
Kushner and Witkoff travelled from Moscow, where they held three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday but did not appear to secure a breakthrough in the conflict.
Previous rounds of US-mediated peace talks encouraged by President Donald Trump, who campaigned on a promise to quickly end the war, have yielded few results. He suggested on Friday that the US had a fresh proposal, though he did not elaborate.
Putin described Saturday's meeting as "highly useful", while a White House official told media that next steps would be announced in the coming weeks.
The two envoys met Zelenskyy and other top Ukrainian officials in central Kiev.
Zelenskyy, who believes Washington will be key to any peace deal, has said a window of opportunity to make peace exists before the US begins focusing on its next presidential elections next summer.
In a post on social media before the envoys' arrival, Zelenskyy said he had held a preparatory meeting with his negotiating team and said Ukraine wanted an end to the war.
"Security guarantees are needed. A dignified post-war peace is needed. Our proposals have been drawn up," he said.
Temporary halt in strikes
A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the British, French and German national security advisers were also in Kyiv on Sunday. The source did not specify which meetings they would participate in.
Witkoff and Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, have visited Moscow several times in their roles as peace envoys. But Sunday will be their first visit to Kiev in their capacity as US negotiators.
In previous talks, the sides have remained far apart on a range of key issues, including the future of the eastern Donbass region. Russia has demanded Ukraine's withdrawal from an entrenched belt of towns that it still controls there, but Kiev has refused, reasoning that it can still hold on there for years.
For Ukraine, hard security guarantees from its European allies and the US are crucial to deterring Russia from attacking again.
Though the front lines of the ground war remain largely static, both Russian and Ukrainian forces have intensified long-range air strikes in recent weeks.
Russia has pounded the Ukrainian capital day and night with missiles and drones for the past two weeks, including an attack on Friday on the headquarters of the SBU security service.
Ukraine, on the other hand, has inflicted damaging hits throughout the summer on Russian refineries, oil terminals and the warehouses of online retailer Wildberries.
The Kremlin has said it would pause strikes on Kiev until Monday, while Zelenskyy has said Ukraine would also halt strikes on Moscow.
Ukraine said on Sunday it had struck the Ryazan oil refinery, around 480 km (300 miles) inside Russia, overnight, causing a fire.
