Trump's top negotiators Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to visit Russia and Ukraine during this weekend, at a time when a peace agreement is beginning to look more possible, but still distant. The news, reported by the Russian state agency TASS and cited by Reuters, has not yet been confirmed by the American side. The visit to the Ukrainian capital, if confirmed, is expected to take place on September 6, after a stop in Moscow, and will be the first of US representatives to Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict. The Russians are reportedly trying to dissuade the Americans from visiting Kyiv.
Witkoff and Kushner have not visited the Russian capital since January, when they met with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. Despite attempts by various negotiators to achieve peace after four and a half years of war, both sides continue to have a myriad of points of disagreement. Moscow continues to claim territory that Kyiv does not intend to give up, while the Ukrainians reject surrendering in the face of the invasion. Putin recently spoke of a "hypothesis" for peace between the Eastern European countries, although noting that the path to resolving the conflict would always have to go through agreements between both nations.
On the Ukrainian side, the Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that he sees "a new momentum in peace efforts," at a time when Ukrainian attacks on Russian territory are reaching targets increasingly distant from the borders. Kyiv has managed to successively strike refineries well inside Russian territory, creating further constraints on Moscow's offensive, which is already facing logistical difficulties and significant losses. Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned airlines about the danger of Russian airspace, assuring that Ukrainian drones only target military infrastructure and will never deliberately threaten civilian aviation.
At the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit, Putin considered these attacks to be "acts of state terrorism" that "complicate the prospects for bilateral peace discussions."
