Russian president Vladimir Putin held more than three hours of talks with US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow as Donald Trump’s administration stepped up efforts to broker an end to the Ukraine war.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said the talks were “substantive, constructive and extremely frank”, but he gave no indication of any breakthrough.
He added that “the negotiations were timely and highly useful for both sides”. He said the US envoys “outlined a number of ideas regarding possible avenues for a settlement”, while Putin “reaffirmed Russia’s readiness to continue working with the US to find a political and diplomatic solution” to the conflict.
Putin told the envoys that Russia was making “real progress” on the battlefield, and that “all the root causes of the conflict” needed to be addressed.
Witkoff and Kushner have since left Moscow and are due to meet Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday.
Putin said he had ordered Russian forces to halt strikes on Kyiv after receiving a request through diplomatic and intelligence channels, while Ukraine has said it will similarly refrain from striking Moscow through Monday.
Russian drone and missile attacks in Kyiv have intensified, disrupting daily life with constant air-raid sirens.
G7 ambassadors in Kyiv have met an International Monetary Fund mission led by Gavin Gray to discuss Ukraine’s economic outlook, with the G7 saying reforms aligned with EU standards remain a priority.
The IMF mission began meetings on 31 August and is examining Ukraine’s macroeconomic policies and reforms under its four-year, $8.1bn Extended Fund Facility, as well as the draft 2027 budget.
Ukraine’s $8.1bn four-year IMF programme remains a key source of international financing. The IMF approved a $690m disbursement in July, taking total payments under the programme to about $2.2bn, but said the economic outlook had weakened because of intensified Russian attacks on critical infrastructure and spillovers from the Middle East war.
Russian president Vladimir Putin held more than three hours of talks with Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow on Saturday, with Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov describing the meeting as “substantive, very frank, and constructive”.
Ushakov said the envoys “put forward a number of ideas on possible routes to a settlement” and would take Putin’s views to Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv.
A White House official said the sides had discussed “substantive plans for next steps”, to be announced in the coming weeks.
Putin told the envoys Russia was making “real progress” on the battlefield and insisted that “all the root causes of the conflict” had to be addressed. At the start of the meeting, he asked them to convey his “very best wishes and words of gratitude” to Trump, saying the US president was continuing efforts to resolve the conflict despite “a difficult situation”.
The talks took place during a limited pause in strikes on the two capitals. Putin said he had ordered Russian forces not to strike Kyiv for three days after receiving a request through diplomatic and intelligence channels, saying: “I issued the relevant order, and no strikes have been carried out on Kyiv since midnight.”
Zelensky said Ukraine would refrain from striking Moscow through Monday.
Berlin accused Moscow of being behind a recent drone attack at an airport in Leipzig. Experts tell Suha Kidwai that the Kremlin’s hybrid attacks are a deliberate ploy to destabilise the biggest economy in Europe ahead of key elections.
Norway seized a Russian research vessel in Svalbard on Wednesday at the request of Ukraine’s state-owned energy company Naftogaz, as part of efforts to enforce a $4.22bn arbitration award over Russia’s seizure of Ukrainian energy assets in Crimea.
An arbitration tribunal in The Hague ordered Russia to pay the sum in 2023, but Moscow has refused to do so.
The vessel, the Professor Molchanov, was seized after Naftogaz sought enforcement through Norwegian courts. The company has been pursuing Russian commercial assets in several countries as it tries to recover the award stemming from Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea.
NATO’s US ambassador Matthew Whitaker has described an attempted Russian-linked drone attack at a German airport as a concerning example of Moscow’s alleged hybrid warfare against Europe.
A drone carrying explosives was found in a restricted area at Leipzig on 4 August, near a Ukrainian Antonov cargo aircraft. The device failed to detonate, but its discovery forced the closure of a runway and disrupted flights.
German authorities later found traces of military explosives and concluded that Russia was behind the attempted attack, saying individuals involved had acted on behalf of Russian state agencies.
“Then you have what I would call the more concerning hybrid actions, as we saw in Leipzig, as we have seen in Poland,” Whitaker said on Saturday. “If we can identify who's doing it – which Germany did – we make sure we express strongly that is unacceptable and we will not tolerate it.”
Russia has denied involvement. Germany has said it will close Russia’s consulate in Bonn and the Russian House cultural centre in Berlin in response to the incident.
Ukrainian drones targeted an oil refinery in Ryazan and several cities across Russia overnight, with explosions reported in Rostov-on-Don and a child injured in the southern city.
Rostov region governor Yuri Slyusar said air defences destroyed around 30 drones over the region. Two apartment buildings in Rostov-on-Don were damaged and a child was hospitalised, while damage was also reported to homes in other parts of the region, according to the Kyiv Independent.
An oil refinery in Ryazan was also targeted, with a fire reported at the site. The plant, which accounts for about 5 per cent of Russia's refining capacity, has previously been hit by Ukrainian drones and suffered an operational shutdown in July.
Ukraine is pushing European governments to revive plans to use some €210bn (£180.4bn) in frozen Russian central-bank assets to help finance its war effort, as Kyiv faces a €27bn (£23.2bn) defence funding gap for 2026.
The Netherlands, Poland, Spain and Sweden have backed reopening the debate, while Belgium, where most of the money is held through Euroclear, remains opposed because of legal and financial risks.
Ukraine’s finance minister Sergii Marchenko has proposed moving custody of the assets from Belgium to the EU level, saying this would spread the risks across all 27 member states. “It will help settle everything and mitigate the risk,” he told Euronews.
Talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow went beyond efforts to end the Ukraine war, with the two sides also discussing potential major Russian-US economic projects, the Kremlin said.
Putin aide Yuri Ushakov said: “Economic issues and potential major, mutually beneficial Russian-American projects were discussed in some detail.” He said the meeting was not simply an exchange of views over the war and described the discussions as “timely and highly useful for both sides.”
Global food prices rose to their highest level since November 2022 in August, with escalating attacks in the Black Sea disrupting grain exports from both Ukraine and Russia, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization said.
Russian and Ukrainian attacks on ports, grain terminals, and commercial vessels have delayed or cancelled dozens of cargoes during the peak export season. Some Asian buyers have already turned to wheat from Australia and Argentina to replace delayed Black Sea shipments, Reuters reported.
The FAO’s cereal price index rose 2.2 per cent in August, while wheat prices climbed 2.6 per cent and were 15 per cent higher than a year earlier. The agency specifically cited “persistent disruptions to Black Sea export logistics” as a factor behind the increase.
