MOSCOW, Sept 5 (Reuters) – U.S. special representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner landed in Moscow on Saturday for talks on the war in Ukraine, two people familiar with the visit told Reuters, adding that they were met by Russian presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev.
A motorcade, carrying Witkoff, Kushner and Dmitriev, left Moscow’s governmental airport and headed towards the city, a Reuters witness said.
Dmitriev, who told Reuters in June that he had remained in contact with the U.S. negotiators during a pause in their visits to Russia, took part in all their previous meetings with President Vladimir Putin. He also played a role in negotiating U.S. sanction waivers for Russian oil this year.
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested on Friday the U.S. had a fresh concrete proposal aimed at ending the war, which is now in its fifth year. He did not, however, elaborate on what that proposal would be.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said also on Friday the two men would fly to Ukraine on Sunday after visiting Moscow. In an X post on Saturday, Zelenskiy said Russia hit two Ukrainian airports ahead of U.S. envoys’ visit to Kyiv.
A vast gulf remains between Russia and Ukraine on how to end the 4-1/2-year-old war, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.
The Kremlin said on Friday the position that Putin set out in a speech two years ago – that Ukraine should cede the entire territory of four regions claimed by Russia and abandon its plan to join NATO – was “unshakeable”.
Since the last peace talks in February, each side has intensified long-range air attacks deep inside the other’s territory, while the war at sea has also escalated.
On the ground, the front lines have remained largely static, with Russia making only gradual gains in its attempt to take the whole of Ukraine’s Donbas region.
Ukraine’s drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have led to a summer of fuel shortages and rising prices for Russian motorists, while some 30 attacks on giant warehouses belonging mostly to Wildberries, the country’s biggest online retailer, have affected the consumer economy.
A Russian drone attack hit the headquarters of Ukraine’s SBU security service in Kyiv on Friday — the 10th consecutive day of heavy attacks on the capital — and Zelenskiy vowed to retaliate.
(Reporting by Reuters in MoscowEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Toby Chopra)
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