Territory remains main obstacle in Ukraine conflict, says Jared Kushner

The territorial dispute between Moscow and Kiev remains the main obstacle to ending the Ukraine conflict, Jared Kushner, US special envoy and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has said. His comments came after he and fellow envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Moscow and Kiev for high-level talks on ending hostilities.

Speaking via video link at the annual YES 2026 conference in Kiev on Friday, Kushner said that Moscow “wants to discuss a way to resolve” the conflict, but “the hardest issue is still territory,” partly because the question is to a degree dictated by a battlefield situation that remains highly dynamic.

“Seeing the advancement in the technology and the way that the battlefield has happened is, I think, beyond the expectation of both sides. And I think one thing I’ve learned in politics is [that] any expert you talk to will give you a ton of ideas, but nobody has any idea what’s actually going to happen,” Kushner said.

Despite this hurdle, Kushner still sounded optimistic about the overall progress. During earlier trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, he said, US, Russian and Ukrainian representatives “completed a deconfliction mechanism and a monitoring mechanism,” with the US military involved in the discussions.

Once the territorial question is resolved, Kushner said, that framework could provide “a real mechanism both to enforce it, protect it and oversee it.”

He stressed that much of the rest of a potential deal could fall into place if Moscow and Kiev overcome the territorial dispute. “I think the sides feel good about” the arrangement, he added. “And that’s actually real progress in that regard.”

Kushner and Witkoff travelled to Moscow earlier this month, where they held more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin before heading to Kiev.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov described the Moscow meeting as “substantive, constructive and extremely candid,” saying Putin stressed Russia’s battlefield gains and the need to address the conflict’s root causes.

Following the talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow hopes trilateral negotiations with Washington and Kiev can resume in the “foreseeable future,” with Ushakov naming Abu Dhabi as Russia’s preferred venue.

Moscow has long insisted that a sustainable settlement is possible only if Kiev recognizes the “new territorial realities,” as well as commits to neutrality, demilitarization and denazification. As Russian forces are making progress on the battlefield, Kiev still clings to less than 15% of the Donetsk People’s Republic.