U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for their first official visit and first direct talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a day after a lengthy meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Both sides described the sit-down as encouraging, with Witkoff and Kushner saying at its conclusion that the discussions were "substantive" and that they looked forward to making more progress.

Zelenskyy told reporters the talks covered security and economic guarantees for Ukraine, the urgent supply of air-defense missiles, and the shape of a broader support package. It marked the first time the two envoys — both close to President Trump and central to his push to broker an end to the war — have met with the Ukrainian leader in person as part of the current diplomatic push.

A Fragile, Narrow Pause

Russia and Ukraine had separately agreed to hold off on aerial attacks against each other's capitals over the weekend specifically to allow the visits to proceed, producing a brief respite for both Kyiv and Moscow. But that arrangement did not extend beyond the two capitals. Russia rejected calls for a wider ceasefire and struck multiple targets across Ukraine early Sunday morning, sparking fires in the wider Kyiv Oblast even as its envoys' counterparts sat down with Zelenskyy in the capital itself.

RUSSIA REJECTED A WIDER CEASEFIRE — THEN STRUCK KYIV OBLAST HOURS BEFORE THE TALKS BEGAN

The visit followed a Saturday meeting in Moscow in which the envoys presented Putin with elements of a Trump-backed framework aimed at ending the war, now well into its fourth year. Officials on both sides have offered few specifics about what that framework contains, and Moscow has not publicly detailed its response.

Further discussions are expected in the coming days, with European national security advisers from France, Germany and the United Kingdom expected to join the next round — a sign that Washington is trying to widen the circle of countries invested in any eventual deal, even as fighting on the ground continues largely unabated. No date has been set for a follow-up session, and neither Kyiv nor Moscow has committed to a longer ceasefire beyond the one-off capital truce that expired with the weekend.