What Happened When US Diplomats Visited Both Russia and Ukraine in One Weekend

Two American diplomats, Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, traveled to Kyiv by train on Sunday 6 September 2026 to talk with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, about ending the war with Russia. The day before, they had spent three hours meeting Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, in Moscow The Guardian. This kind of trip — where a mediator goes back and forth between two sides that won't meet each other directly — is called shuttle diplomacy. It was the most intense round of this kind since the US and Ukraine proposed a 20-point peace plan in December 2025.

Witkoff said the Kyiv talks were "very constructive and substantive" and would continue "for as long as it lasts." Kushner called the war "a long, hard and emotional war" and said his team was in almost daily contact with Ukrainian officials. People involved also called the discussions "encouraging" PBS.

Russia's government called the talks useful but gave no sign of a breakthrough Reuters.

The way the envoys traveled showed how dangerous the situation is. Kushner and Witkoff came by train because Russia had bombed Kyiv's two main airports on Friday 4 September. A Russian drone also hit Ukraine's intelligence agency building that day, just a few hundred metres from where Zelenskyy greeted the envoys near St. Sophia Cathedral. Both Russia and Ukraine agreed not to attack each other's capitals over the weekend so the envoys could travel safely.

A new development in the Kyiv talks was that other countries got involved. National security advisers — top officials who advise leaders on defense and foreign policy — from Britain, France, and Germany briefly joined the discussions. Zelenskyy said he wanted future meetings to include three sides: Ukraine, the US, and European countries. Witkoff said he was hopeful these three-way meetings would be announced "in short order."

Until now, the negotiations have mostly been between the US and Ukraine on one side, with Russia talked to separately. The 20-point peace plan from December 2025, created jointly by the US and Ukraine, has been the main framework for the talks. Earlier in 2026, the US, Russia, and Ukraine were set to hold their first three-way peace talks in Abu Dhabi, and Witkoff said in January that only one issue was left to resolve Al Jazeera. Nine months later, the process has expanded to include European countries. This suggests either that the last gap was too hard to close between just two sides, or that the US and Ukraine decided any lasting peace deal would need European security commitments built in from the start.

Zelenskyy also asked for a "winter package" of help from the US and Europe so Ukraine can survive another winter of fighting. The talks covered air defence, energy support, and the use of American LNG — short for liquefied natural gas, which is natural gas cooled into liquid form so it can be shipped across oceans. Including LNG in a peace meeting connects the diplomatic talks to energy security, since US gas exports have increasingly replaced Russian gas that Europe used to buy.

The relationship between Kushner, Witkoff, and Zelenskyy goes back to at least December 2025, when they held a phone call. It continued through preparatory meetings in February 2026 ahead of talks in Geneva, and again in June 2026 President of Ukraine. Zelenskyy publicly announced the envoys' planned Moscow-Kyiv trip on 4 September 2026 President of Ukraine.

The bigger picture is that several things make this September round different from earlier ones. The fact that both Russia and Ukraine agreed to pause attacks on each other's capitals for the weekend shows they will create a safe space for diplomacy when the US asks for it. The involvement of British, French, and German officials opens the door to European countries becoming part of the actual negotiation, not just observing afterward. And tying a winter aid package to the peace talks suggests that help with energy and defense is being used as part of the bargaining process, not just handed out separately.

Whether Russia's cautious view or Witkoff's optimism turns out to be right will depend on whether the promised three-way talks actually happen, and whether the 20-point plan can include European countries without falling apart.