US envoys Moscow talks follow Abu Dhabi prisoner deal

US envoys Moscow talks took centre stage on Thursday as Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff landed in Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin.

Kirill Dmitriev, Putin’s special envoy, met the pair at Vnukovo airport in wet snow. He then went with them to central Moscow.

Why the US envoys Moscow talks matter

Reports put the meeting before midday. Witkoff has now sat down with Putin in person ten times.

The visit followed two days of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, which ended on Wednesday. Those sessions were the first in about nine months to bring Russian and Ukrainian negotiators together under US mediation.

Hopes for the peace talks had been low. Both delegations agreed on another large prisoner exchange. Kushner called it the largest of the war so far. However, the sides reported no public breakthrough on the wider negotiations.

Russian and Ukrainian negotiators reported some progress. Washington’s team said gaps persisted on big questions such as land. Trump has sounded upbeat in public. Yet neither side has shown any sign of a big concession.

What Kushner said before the US envoys Moscow talks

Kushner posted on X that the prisoner swap “will reunite families, build trust, and create momentum toward peace.” He also said the US had aligned on proposals with Ukraine and its European partners.

Those proposals were due for discussion with Putin in Moscow, he wrote, followed by consultations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Still, he admitted that “significant differences remain” between the two sides.

One goal of the Moscow visit, Kushner said, was to win Russian agreement for European representatives to join the talks. In his view, Europe, the European Union and NATO must help shape any postwar security plan.

The sticking points

Land remained the hardest issue for the US envoys Moscow talks. Kyiv has strongly rejected Putin’s demand that it surrender all of the eastern Donbas region in return for peace.

Because land has stalled the process, American mediators have nudged the agenda to postwar security guarantees and rebuilding. Other hurdles include Ukraine’s hope of joining NATO and the size of its army.

Europe’s role also divides the parties. The Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said on Wednesday that European representatives could eventually join the talks. However, he said their current statements showed no wish to move the process towards peace.

Moscow complains that Europe finances Ukraine and supplies it with weapons. Meanwhile, a senior Russian diplomat floated non-aggression pacts between Moscow and individual NATO members, as one piece of a new European security order.

Many European politicians reject that idea for now. They argue that talk of continental security must wait for real gains on Ukraine, starting with a ceasefire.

Zelenskyy and the fighting

Kushner and Witkoff planned to fly on to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy. He arrived there on Wednesday after a visit to Denmark, and about 40 European leaders gathered in the city for a regional summit.

The Dublin stop is the next step after the US envoys Moscow talks. Zelenskyy gave the Abu Dhabi outcome a muted welcome. He called the prisoner exchange a positive step. Yet he insisted that Ukraine would not give up occupied land in exchange for peace.

The war itself did not pause. Overnight, Russia sent 123 drones, according to Ukraine’s air force, and 73 of them ran on jet engines. Russia also fired ballistic, cruise and anti-ship missiles.

Defenders intercepted or suppressed 89 drones and five cruise missiles, the air force said, and strikes hit 17 locations. In Kyiv, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said a drone strike killed one person and injured seven others in the Solomianskyi district.

Russia’s defence ministry said its air defences downed 71 Ukrainian drones overnight. It also said its forces hit a drone factory near Kyiv and other sites. Separately, a car blast killed a Russian serviceman in St Petersburg.

For now, the US envoys Moscow talks leave the next step with Putin’s answer. Also, the Dublin meeting with Zelenskyy will show whether the sides can narrow their gap on land. Reports had not yet described any result of the US envoys Moscow talks.