Talks between Vladimir Putin, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner began Saturday afternoon in the Kremlin with both sides upping the ante on mutual attacks. Putin ordered a pause in attacks on kyiv before the visit of American envoys. The Russian president acknowledged the difficulty of the mission: "We are facing a difficult situation, a situation that we will have to address."
Witkoff and Kushner arrived with a proposal from Donald Trump whose content Washington has not explained. "We have an idea for peace and there may be a good chance of achieving something," said the US president. On Sunday they plan to travel to kyiv, on their first official visit to Ukraine as Trump's emissaries.
The US leader, who boasts of having ended eight wars and attributes the logjam to personal hatred between Putin and Zelensky, once again presents himself as a peacemaker after months focused on Iran. However, the positions remain intact. Putin demands that Ukraine hand over even the parts of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson that Russia has not conquered and resign from NATO. kyiv rejects new territorial concessions.
The first measure linked to the talks has been a limited pause. Putin ordered not to attack kyiv for three days starting at midnight on Saturday. Zelensky announced that Ukraine will refrain from attacking Moscow until Monday. It is not a general ceasefire: it does not include the front or the rest of the two countries.
Putin and Zelensky maintain a similar strategy against Trump. The first declares that there is still "a possibility of agreement." The second spoke with the emissaries after their arrival in Moscow and will receive them in kyiv. No one wants to appear before the White House as responsible for a failure, because Washington can still condition weapons and sanctions.
The pause comes after Russia kept up bombing during preparations. Moscow attacked the airports of kyiv and Borispol. Zelensky linked those attacks to the possibility of Americans flying directly to Ukraine. A day earlier, a Russian drone hit the headquarters of the Ukrainian Security Service in kyiv, injuring 12 people.
The Kremlin's backroom does not anticipate concessions either: sources close to Russian power told Bloomberg at the end of August that Moscow considers the talks blocked in any case and is considering intensifying ballistic missile attacks against kyiv and other cities. Putin is confident that economic pressure and Ukrainian attacks will not force him to abandon his objectives.
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A source close to the Kremlin has assured Reuters that Putin wants to conquer the rest of Donetsk before negotiating the front line. Russian commanders believe they can achieve this before the end of the year. Western analysts consider it unlikely due to the slowness of progress.
