The United States and Russia have agreed to continue direct peace talks about the Russia-Ukraine war, after they were paused for nine months, following a meeting in Moscow on Thursday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and two American envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner. The Kremlin described the talks as useful, and a United States official called the discussion constructive and substantive.
The meeting was the tenth time Witkoff has met Putin in person, and it came a day after two days of trilateral peace talks in the United Arab Emirates concluded in Abu Dhabi with news of another planned prisoner exchange but no breakthrough on ending the nearly five-year war. The Moscow talks focused on potential pathways to ending the war, addressing the security concerns of both sides, and establishing the conditions for a durable peace, according to the American official.
One concrete point of agreement emerged from the meeting: the American side supported Putin's proposal for a joint humanitarian mission to a city in eastern Ukraine, the Kremlin said. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov added that Putin would continue discussions on Ukraine with United States President Donald Trump at an APEC summit in China later this month.
Kushner, the president's son-in-law, and Witkoff arrived in Moscow on Thursday morning, greeted at the airport by Putin's special envoy Kirill Dmitriev, before continuing to central Moscow for talks with Putin that began a few hours later. The pair had flown in from Abu Dhabi, where they led the American delegation in the first United States-brokered meeting between Russia and Ukraine since February.
The Abu Dhabi talks, which ran for two days and ended on Wednesday, produced the one tangible result of the week: an agreement in principle on a large-scale prisoner exchange, which Kushner described as the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners of the war. But the talks ended without a ceasefire and without agreement on the territorial questions at the heart of the conflict.
Kushner has said European partners must be at the negotiating table, a position he pressed in Moscow and one that the Europeans have long demanded. After leaving the Russian capital, the two envoys are scheduled to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Dublin on Friday, where Zelenskyy is attending a gathering of European leaders.
The diplomacy unfolded against a backdrop of continued fighting. Russia and Ukraine exchanged attacks on each other's capitals early on Thursday, shortly before the American envoys arrived in Moscow, in a reminder of how far the two sides remain from a settlement even as the talks resume.
The deepest disagreement remains over what should come first. Russia wants to negotiate a broad European security framework before tackling the specifics of the war, while Ukraine and its European backers want a ceasefire first. Russian negotiator Vladimir Medinsky said after the Abu Dhabi talks that in some areas the sides had reached a mutual understanding, and in others they had not.
For the Trump administration, the Moscow visit is part of a renewed push to end a war that has lasted nearly five years. The resumption of direct talks after a nine-month pause, and the agreement to keep them going, is the most concrete diplomatic progress in months — even if the hardest questions remain unanswered.
Whether the talks in Moscow and Abu Dhabi represent a genuine step towards peace, or simply another round of negotiations that produces little, will become clearer in the coming days, when the envoys brief Zelenskyy in Dublin and when the details of the prisoner exchange are settled. For now, the channels are open again — and both sides say the conversation will continue.
