Russian President Vladimir Putin held a late-night meeting in Moscow with U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to U.S. President Donald Trump, as part of ongoing diplomatic efforts to advance peace negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine war. The discussions occurred ahead of planned trilateral talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
The Kremlin-hosted session also included Yuri Ushakov, Putin’s presidential foreign policy advisor, and Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund, along with Josh Gruenbaum from the U.S. Government Procurement Agency his first such participation in the peace dialogue.
The high-level contacts followed statements from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that peace proposals were “nearly ready,” though a major unresolved issue believed to center on the status of Russian-occupied territories in eastern Ukraine remains a significant obstacle to concluding an agreement. U.S. Envoy Witkoff previously noted that one major sticking point persists in the negotiations, echoing calls by Zelenskyy for mutual compromise from all parties.
The Moscow meeting is part of a broader diplomatic sequence that will transition to formal three-party talks in the UAE, where negotiators hope to build on the groundwork laid by earlier bilateral engagements and bridge long-standing disagreements in pursuit of a sustainable peace framework.
