Two of Donald Trump’s most senior envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have arrived in Moscow for weekend talks aimed at breaking the deadlock in efforts to end the war in Ukraine. The envoy also has plans to travel to Kyiv on Sunday for a separate round of discussions with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Trump told reporters on Friday that the pair were “bringing with them a proposal to end the war.” The Kremlin ordered a three-day halt to strikes on Kyiv specifically due to the visit, according to Russian state media. Kushner and Witkoff were photographed being greeted at Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport by Russian diplomat Kirill Dmitriev. Flight tracking data showed their US government plane travelled from Helsinki, where it had flown earlier from the United States.
The pair have visited Russia several times previously. This visit, however, did not begin without friction. Zelensky said Russia fired what he described as “demonstrative” overnight strikes on airports in Kyiv and Boryspil. Ones which he interpreted as a reaction to preparations for a possible US government aircraft landing in Ukraine.
An overnight Russian strike on a civilian building in the Dnipro region also killed four people and injured five others. Zelensky said on Friday he would guarantee safety for Russian airspace during the envoys’ visit and called on Russia to do the same for Ukraine.
The Moscow visit comes just over a week after CIA Director John Ratcliffe made a rare trip to the Russian capital. No details of that meeting were made public. Trump described it as “semi-routine.”
Ukraine has acknowledged it is struggling to repel Russian strikes due to a shortage of interceptor missiles. Regardless, it continues to focus its own offensive operations on Russian economic infrastructure.
READ ALSO: https://alo360.net/nepal-tunnel-rescue-flood-survivors/
