Zelensky meets with White House emissaries in kyiv to discuss ending the war

The meeting between the president of Ukraine, Volodimir Zelensky, and his team with the White House emissaries, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, to try to reactivate the dialogue to end the war in Russia began this Sunday in kyiv, after which there will be another session with representatives of Germany, France and the United Kingdom.

"We have started negotiations," Zelensky reported in a message on his official Telegram account.

He had previously told the TSN television network that a first working session was planned between the American and Ukrainian teams and later another one with the European partners.

His chief of staff, Kirilo Budanov, explained on Telegram that these are representatives of France, the United Kingdom and Germany.

"An intense day and important negotiations await us," he said, and maintained that "we are all working together to achieve a just and lasting peace for Ukraine."

Witkoff and Kushner, who were in the Kremlin the day before to present Vladimir Putin with a proposal to end the war, arrived in kyiv by train, because "the Russians did not allow them to arrive by plane," according to Zelensky, despite having decreed a cessation of attacks against the city until Monday.

At the railway station in the Ukrainian capital they were received by the entire Ukrainian negotiating team.

Budanov, the head of the foreign intelligence service, Rustem Umerov, David Arajamia, leader of the ruling Servant of the People party in the Ukrainian Parliament, and the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Sergi Kislitsia, greeted Witkoff and Kushner with hugs.

Subsequently, the American delegation headed to Sofia Square, where they were received by Zelensky, who told TSN that "we had been waiting for Steve and Jared for a long time," while Witkoff claimed to have had "an excellent trip" to kyiv.

This is the first visit by the special envoy of the US president, Donald Trump, and his son-in-law to kyiv since the tenant of the White House assumed his second term.

Until now the two negotiators had traveled to Moscow on several occasions, but not to the Ukrainian capital, so Zelensky himself and his team had always had to travel to the US or other countries.

The last meeting between Zelensky's team and the American emissaries took place at the end of March in Miami (Florida), although the Ukrainian president himself also met twice with Trump in July, within the framework of the NATO summit and in the Oval Office.

However, the peace dialogue has remained stalled for more than six months due to the US war with Iran and the impossibility of bringing closer positions between Russia and Ukraine.

"We are prepared to dialogue," Zelensky wrote shortly before the arrival of the emissaries on his social networks.

"Ukraine has always been and will continue to be constructive. We are interested in bringing the end of the war closer. Peace is necessary. Security guarantees are needed. It is necessary that post-war peace have a dignified character," he stressed.