Ukraine-Russia war latest: Zelensky predicts another winter at war despite ‘substantive talks’ with Trump envoys

Volodymy Zelensky thanked the US envoys for visiting the Ukrainian capital Kyiv yesterday, joking that their visit ensured a brief window of safety from Russian strikes – more efficiently than US-made Patriot missile interceptors.

“Thank you for coming and we are grateful to the president of the United States that you are here in Kyiv today. Today, you worked even better than the Patriot systems for our citizens here in the capital. Please come visit more often, and our people will have a chance – a chance to live a little,” Zelensky said, speaking at a public briefing alongside Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.

Kyiv has not disclosed details yet of the outcomes of the visit or the terms for ensuring the two envoys’ safety, but it is likely to have involved a request to Russia to halt attacks on the capital during their stay.

In the weeks leading up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the headlines in a Kyiv newspaper looked much like they would anywhere else.

On 24 February 2022, everything changed as Russian tanks rolled across the border. Businesses closed or relocated, martial law saw hundreds of thousands of working-age men recruited for military service, and around one million people fled the country in the first week.

A brave few stayed behind to keep a record of what happened as the missiles rained down. Local journalists observed and asked questions as their communities were torn apart by the war.

US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have visited Moscow several times in their roles as peace envoys. But Sunday marked their first visit to Kyiv in their capacity as US negotiators.

Their visit has long been sought by Ukraine’s leadership, and on the streets of Kyiv, which has been bombarded heavily in recent weeks, some residents were hopeful.

“The issue can be solved in the blink of an eye. We want peace. I’ve fought myself, so I know what war is like. We need peace, because there’s no other way,” said military veteran Stepan Yermak.

In previous talks, the sides have remained far apart on key issues, including the future of the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas.

Russia has demanded Ukraine’s withdrawal from a belt of towns that it still controls there, but Kyiv has refused, reasoning that it can still hold on.

“The question of Donbas… I believe, is the question of this war,” Zelensky told reporters on Sunday.

US envoy Steve Witkoff said on Sunday that he felt good about peace talks in both Moscow and Kyiv.

The senior envoy from the Trump administration who held talks with Ukraine yesterday said that the US hoped to find a diplomatic solution to the war.

Hours earlier, president Volodymyr Zelensky said his talks with US peace negotiators were “very substantial”.

The two sides discussed ‌security and economic guarantees for ‌Ukraine and also ‌supplies of air-defence missiles ⁠and a winter support package.

He also hoped that trilateral talks, including Ukraine, ‌Russia ​and the ‌US ⁠would restart soon.

A girl was killed and three other people were wounded in a Ukraine drone attack on the Russia-held Black Sea port city of Sevastopol late on Sunday, officials said.

The attack was confirmed by Moscow-appointed governor Mikhail Razvozhayev on his Telegram channel.

The Ukrainian president, who believes Washington will ​be key to any ⁠peace deal, has said a window of opportunity to ‌make peace exists before the US begins focusing on its next presidential election in 2028.

The US envoys held several hours of talks with Ukrainian officials. British, French and German national security advisers, who were also in Kyiv, joined for the final hour. The US-Ukrainian discussions were due to continue on Sunday evening.

During a ‌break, Volodymyr Zelensky said officials discussed the possibility of security and economic guarantees for Kyiv, as well as ‌a post-war “prosperity plan.”

“In the last 10 to 12 months, I believe we have got stronger,” Mr Zelensky said, adding that the U.S. and Europe had noted this.

US special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for high-stakes negotiations with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, capping a high-wire weekend of shuttle diplomacy aimed at breaking a long-standing stalemate in the war.

The trip marks the American envoys’ first official visit to the Ukrainian capital after traveling by train from Poland, having previously made eight visits to Moscow.

Read the full article here:

In the weeks leading up to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, the headlines in a Kyiv newspaper looked much like they would anywhere else.

On 24 February 2022, everything changed as Russian tanks rolled across the border. Businesses closed or relocated, martial law saw hundreds of thousands of working-age men recruited for military service, and around one million people fled the country in the first week.

Read the full article here:

Steve Witkoff is the real estate guy with zero diplomatic experience who Donald Trump appointed in 2024 as his personal “peace emissary”.

Jared Kushner is the president’s son-in-law, but did at least play some role in one of President Trump’s few foreign policy achievements – the Abraham Accords process that promised to deliver some stability to the Middle East during the first Trump term. As a team, they have enjoyed little success in securing the “settlement” to the war in Ukraine that Mr Trump so desires.

There is little reason to suppose that their latest exercise in shuttle diplomacy will succeed where their previous efforts failed. Indeed, the prospects for an end to the war, let alone one that will prove just and lasting, are as dismal as at any time since Vladimir Putin launched his ill-fated “special military operation” more than four and a half years ago – its duration now longer than the Soviet Union’s four-year “great patriotic war” against Adolf Hitler.

Just as in that epoch-defining conflict, it is the civilian population of Ukraine that will face some of the harshest consequences as winter approaches.

Read the full editorial here: