US envoys Witkoff, Kushner arrive in Moscow for talks on peace in Ukraine

US special representatives Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner landed in Moscow on Saturday for talks on how to end the ‌war in Ukraine, where 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. Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency that President Vladimir Putin would meet Witkoff and Kushner in the Kremlin later on Saturday.

US President Donald Trump suggested on Friday that the ​US 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.

Read: Russia torments Kyiv with seventh day of strikes

Russian envoy Dmitriev, who told Reuters in June that he had remained in contact with the US negotiators ⁠during a pause in their visits to Russia, took part in all their previous meetings with Putin alongside Putin's foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov.

He also played a ​role in negotiating US sanction waivers for Russian oil this year.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that the two men would fly to Ukraine on Sunday after visiting ​Moscow. In an X post on Saturday, Zelensky said Russia hit two Ukrainian airports ahead of US envoys' visit to Kyiv.

Peskov said in a statement posted on the Kremlin's channel in Max Messenger that Putin had ordered the military not to strike Kyiv for three days, starting at midnight on Saturday, in connection with Witkoff and Kushner's visit to the Ukrainian capital.

​A vast gulf in positions

The Russian Defence Ministry reported 53 Ukrainian drones in Russian airspace on Saturday, significantly fewer than the average seen in recent months. ​Moscow is celebrating City Day on Saturday, with hundreds of thousands of people taking part in open-air festivities across the city.

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.

A source close to the Kremlin, speaking before reports emerged of a possible trip by President Trump's envoys, said Putin was still intent on capturing more territory.

"There is no chance of reaching an agreement regarding the front line until Putin finishes securing the remaining part of the Donetsk region," the source told Reuters, adding that the Kremlin leader was confident — based on reports from his commanders — that this would happen by the ​end of the year.

Kremlin's position 'unshakeable'

Western ​military analysts see such a possibility ⁠as remote, given Moscow's slow rate of progress. Ukraine refuses to surrender land that it has successfully defended at huge cost, and rejects such terms as tantamount to surrender.

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.

Read more: US approves possible $5b weapons sale to Saudi Arabia amid Middle East tensions

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 Zelensky vowed to retaliate.

Four days earlier, the US move to welcome Russia back to a meeting of G20 countries while denying some journalists access to the gathering dismayed some finance leaders. The two-day meeting in Asheville, North Carolina, came as the global economy was being buffeted by an energy shock triggered by the US-Iran war, faced rising tensions over China's huge goods trade surplus and was braced for how an investment surge in AI would ultimately play out.

As US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent opened the meeting, some ministers were surprised and dismayed to see Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov sitting at the G20 table, the first time they had attended the forum in person since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022.