The United States spent the weekend moving its two most senior envoys between the two capitals of a war that is now in its fifth year. On Saturday, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin in a closed-door session that ran more than three hours. On Sunday they arrived in Kyiv, having flown as far as Rzeszów in Poland and completed the journey overland by train, and met President Volodymyr Zelensky at St Sophia Square.

It was the first official visit to Ukraine by either man during the war, and the first time the two had travelled to Kyiv together. Neither the Kremlin meeting nor the Kyiv meeting produced an announced breakthrough. Neither Washington nor Moscow disclosed the substance of the American proposals.

What each side said

Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, described the Moscow talks afterwards as constructive. The White House said the meeting had covered substantive plans for next steps. Witkoff characterised the discussions in both capitals as constructive and said the American side had heard new ideas from Moscow. Kushner said Washington was assembling a broader peace package.

Zelensky, ahead of the meeting, said Ukraine was interested in bringing the end of the war closer and stressed the need for security guarantees and a settlement that would hold. Afterwards he described the discussions as very substantial and said Ukraine was prepared to move toward trilateral talks involving Kyiv, Washington and Moscow.

Read in isolation, that is a well-stocked set of encouraging adjectives. Read against the record, it is close to identical to the language used after the Geneva talks in November 2025, the Miami rounds in December, the Abu Dhabi meetings in the winter and the Florida talks in March. Each was called constructive. None produced an agreement on the questions that actually divide the parties.

The sceptical reading

Three former US ambassadors to Ukraine, interviewed by RFE/RL on 6 September, were asked whether the weekend amounted to a breakthrough. Their answer, for now, was no. Their central caution was that diplomatic activity and diplomatic advance are different things, and that the volume of the former tells you very little about the latter.

One test they proposed is concrete and short-term: whether details of what was actually discussed emerge over the coming days. Negotiations that are converging tend to leak specifics, because the parties need to prepare their publics. Negotiations that are stalled tend to leak atmosphere.

The Europeans in the room

The detail most likely to matter in the longer run is that national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany joined part of the Kyiv discussions. Witkoff said their presence showed that collaboration was critical to reaching a settlement.

The argument for that mattering, made by William Taylor among the former ambassadors, runs as follows: any settlement will require security guarantees for Ukraine, and the countries most likely to supply the troops, equipment and money behind such guarantees are European. Europe is also already a major source of financial and military assistance to Kyiv. A guarantee designed without the guarantors is not a guarantee.

The counter-observation is that being consulted is not the same as negotiating. On the evidence of the weekend, the Europeans have been brought into consultations rather than given a formal role at the table. Whether that changes depends on what Washington eventually tables and what Moscow is willing to accept — neither of which is currently public.

What remains unresolved

The same three things that have been unresolved throughout: territory, Ukraine’s relationship with NATO, and the shape and enforceability of security guarantees. Every round of talks since late 2025 has foundered on some combination of them, and nothing announced this weekend indicates that any of the three has moved.

Meanwhile the war continues. Pope Leo XIV, speaking at the Angelus in St Peter’s Square on the same Sunday, deplored the latest Russian attacks on Ukraine and expressed hope for peace amid the American effort.

The honest summary of the weekend is that two envoys travelled a long way, everyone used warm words, and the public knows no more about the terms of a possible settlement than it did on Friday. That may change quickly. It has not changed yet.

Sources

• Al Jazeera, 6 September 2026
• RFE/RL, interviews with three former US ambassadors to Ukraine, 6 September 2026
• GreekReporter, account of the Kyiv meeting and White House statement, 6 September 2026
• National Catholic Register / CNA, Angelus address, 6 September 2026