US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have arrived in Moscow for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin following two days of trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The November 12 visit marks the 10th time that Witkoff has visited Russia for talks with Putin in an effort to resolve the conflict.
Along with Kushner, Witkoff has served as one of the lead negotiators in efforts to settle the long-running war since US President Donald Trump made it one of his foreign policy priorities upon taking office for his second term in 2025.
The two envoys were met at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport by Kirill Dmitriev, a senior Russian official involved in talks with Washington.
After meeting Putin, the envoys are expected to fly to Dublin to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who arrived in Ireland earlier for a meeting of European leaders.
While the Abu Dhabi talks on November 10-11 appeared to yield only limited humanitarian progress, with a large-scale prisoner exchange in the works, there was no sign of a breakthrough toward peace.
US officials described the negotiations as tough but productive, while Moscow and Kyiv remained far apart in their positions, with the Kremlin offering no compromise on its hard-line demands.
Russia’s chief negotiator, Vladimir Medinsky, who led previous talks with Ukraine in 2022 and 2025 without breaking the deadlock, said territorial exchanges as part of a settlement were out of the question.
The Kremlin has for years been pushing for any peace deal to include full control over territory in Ukraine’s key eastern Donetsk region, which Russian forces have been unable to seize on the battlefield.
The issue has been widely regarded as central to the resolution of the conflict.
Zelenskyy said that Kyiv hoped concrete results could be achieved this year in talks on resolving the conflict as Ukraine heads into its fifth wartime winter with thousands of people repeatedly left without electricity or heating amid relentless Russian strikes.
But much of the progress in the talks depended on how the United States approaches Moscow, the Ukrainian president added.
“We are living through these massive attacks.” he said. “Of course, we want to get results by the end of this year, and of course, we will be doing everything to make that happen.”
Kyiv has repeatedly argued that increasing pressure on the Kremlin and its war machine could shift the balance of power in the war and force Russia into meaningful negotiations that could stop the conflict.
The current US administration, however, has taken a more conciliatory approach toward Moscow, recently easing sanctions and striking a diesel deal with Russia while pressing Kyiv not to attack its oil refineries.
During Witkoff’s last meeting with Putin in October, Witkoff called the Russian leader a “humanitarian” after Moscow released US citizen Stephen Hubbard from prison, framing the development as a goodwill gesture.
The fighting showed no sign of abating on November 12, as Russia and Ukraine exchanged fresh drone and missile attacks while the US envoys arrived in Moscow.
Explosions were reported in Kyiv, where at least one person was killed, according to officials. Another person was reported killed in the southern Kherson region, while strikes damaged civilian and energy infrastructure in the western Rivne region.
Russian authorities, meanwhile, reported intercepting drones heading toward Moscow and over several other regions, including Rostov and Tula.
