Russian President Vladimir Putin has met envoys from the United States for talks to end more than four years of Moscow\u2019s war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n
Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived at the Kremlin on Saturday after landing in Moscow earlier in the day. The envoys are expected in the Ukrainian capital on Sunday.<\/p>\n
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Putin welcomed the two in a ceremony aired on Russian television, telling them: \u201cThe situation is, of course, not simple.\u201d<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump had said that Kushner, his son-in-law, and Witkoff, his special envoy and business ally, were bringing \u201ca proposal to end the war\u201d.<\/p>\n
Following three hours of talks, senior \u2060Russian \u2060official Kirill Dmitriev, who was also part of the meetings, said the envoys\u2019 \u2060trip to Moscow was an \u201cimportant peacemaking visit\u201d.<\/p>\n
Russia and Ukraine both pledged not to strike each other\u2019s capitals for three days during the negotiations, as Washington tries to revive talks to end Europe\u2019s worst conflict since World War II.<\/p>\n
Kremlin foreign policy aide Yury Ushakov said that \u201ca whole series of ideas for a peace settlement\u201d had been formulated during the talks, which he described to reporters as \u201csubstantive, very frank and constructive\u201d.<\/p>\n
He said Putin told the envoys that Russia would achieve its objectives and that the \u201croot causes\u201d of the conflict needed to be resolved.<\/p>\n
Moscow is \u201cconfident\u201d it can achieve its military goals of seizing the rest of eastern Ukraine, Ushakov added.<\/p>\n
Witkoff and Kushner \u201cpromised to take Putin\u2019s assessments\u201d to their talks in Kyiv, Ushakov said, and the two sides agreed that Putin and Trump would stay in touch.<\/p>\n
Witkoff told Putin that the US president had sent his best wishes and \u2060\u2060thanked him for \u2060\u2060the limited ceasefire during the delegation\u2019s visit. The Russian president also conveyed gratitude to Trump and said \u2060\u2060Moscow would do its \u2060\u2060utmost to ensure \u2060\u2060the safety of the mediators.<\/p>\n
During the talks, Al Jazeera\u2019s Yulia Shapovalova, reporting from Moscow, said there were \u201csome more or less optimistic reports\u201d from the Kremlin regarding the progress of the discussions.<\/p>\n
On the one hand, Putin says he \u201cremains publicly open to peace talks\u201d, said Shapovalova. But on the other, \u201cfollowing all of Ukraine\u2019s escalating drone operations deep inside Russia and the targeting of major economic and logistics hubs like oil infrastructure and online retailers\u201d, he maintains that he will not make any concessions on any key issues, that major differences remain in place, and that he will not negotiate with \u201cterrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n
The envoys left Moscow on Saturday evening en route to Kyiv, Russian news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reported.<\/p>\n
Some analysts say that the \u201cexpectation in the Kremlin for this particular visit of the US envoys is actually less pessimistic, because previous trips by Witkoff and Kushner have not led to any progress, and Putin believes that Russia holds a military advantage on the battlefield\u201d, Shapovalova added.<\/p>\n
\u2018Refrain from strikes\u2019<\/p>\n
The talks come as the grinding war \u2013 which began with Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 \u2013 has seen increasing civilian deaths and attacks in the past few months.<\/p>\n
After seizing and occupying a majority of eastern Ukraine, Putin has repeatedly said that Moscow intends to take the rest of it.<\/p>\n
Russian strikes on Ukraine on Saturday killed at least seven people, including in the Kyiv suburbs, Ukrainian officials said.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia\u2019s Belgorod region killed one person and injured another, according to local authorities.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin said it would not strike Kyiv from midnight on Saturday, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would halt attacks on Moscow \u201cfrom now\u201d until Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Russian president, the commander-in-chief, has given the order from midnight tonight not to strike Kyiv for three days,\u201d Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.<\/p>\n
Zelenskyy \u2013 who had offered a truce during the US visits \u2013 later said he had spoken to the US envoys and also promised Kyiv would not strike Moscow.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom now through the end of Saturday, as well as on Sunday and Monday, Ukraine is ready to refrain from strikes on Moscow,\u201d Zelenskyy said on social media.<\/p>\n
The Ukrainian leader said he expected the US officials in Kyiv on Sunday.<\/p>\n
It will be Witkoff and Kushner\u2019s first visit to Kyiv since Trump returned to office last year with a pledge to resolve the conflict.<\/p>\n
Al Jazeera\u2019s Audrey MacAlpine, reporting from Kyiv, said the US envoys\u2019 visit to Ukraine is being viewed as a \u201cmilestone\u201d in the country.<\/p>\n
However, the visit is seen as more ceremonial than one \u201cgoing to lead to any real concrete results, though, of course, we still have to wait for the outcome of these meetings\u201d, she said.<\/p>\n
Many people in Ukraine believe that \u201cforeign diplomats need to come here to fully understand the scope of the war, so this is very important to Ukrainian officials to have these representatives from the US here tomorrow\u201d, Macalpine added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russian President Vladimir Putin has met envoys from the United States for talks to end more than four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":885197,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[8721,3456,43,44,714,6639,22373,41,39,42,40],"class_list":["post-885196","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-conflict","tag-europe","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-politics","tag-russia","tag-russia-ukraine-war","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885196","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=885196"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/885196\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/885197"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=885196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=885196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=885196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}