Jared Kushner and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff landed in Moscow on Thursday for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin aimed at ending the Ukraine war, days after trilateral negotiations wrapped up with no public breakthrough. Russian special envoy Kirill Dmitriev met the pair on the tarmac amid wet snow and accompanied them into central Moscow, according to The Moscow Times.

The trip follows talks that concluded Wednesday with an announcement of another major prisoner exchange, but the two sides remain deadlocked on the war's central disputes, according to CNN. Kyiv has flatly rejected Putin's demand that it cede the remainder of the eastern Donbas region, including territory Russian forces have not captured, while Moscow has rejected Ukrainian NATO membership as a security guarantee.

A plan cut from 28 points to 19

The U.S.-backed framework under discussion has been trimmed from an original 28-point proposal to 19 points after a separate round of talks with Ukrainian officials, according to Al Jazeera. With the territorial question stuck, U.S. mediators have tried to steer the conversation toward postwar security guarantees and reconstruction funding instead, and toward bringing European governments into a format Moscow has so far resisted.

A COMPROMISE ON TERRITORY HAS NOT BEEN REACHED.

Kushner said ahead of the meeting that the envoys would also work to finalize humanitarian relief measures and further prisoner exchanges during the Moscow stop. Putin has previously called the pared-down plan a possible "basis" for an eventual agreement, without committing to its terms.

Kushner and Witkoff are scheduled to fly to Dublin on Friday to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Putin's response, the next stop in a shuttle-diplomacy effort that has now stretched over multiple rounds without a signed deal. European officials, watching from outside the room, have offered their own security guarantees to Kyiv — but only once, and if, a deal with Moscow is actually signed.