President Trump’s advisers Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin to try to convince him to support the updated U.S. peace plan for Ukraine.
Why it matters: The meeting in Moscow comes after two weeks of intense diplomacy around Trump’s plan, including two rounds of negotiations between the U.S. and Ukraine. Putin has said Trump’s plan could be the basis for negotiations, but has suggested he’s unwilling to shift his hardline positions.
The intrigue: This is Witkoff’s sixth meeting with Putin in Russia but the first in-person meeting between Putin and Trump’s team since the Alaska summit in August. It’s also the first time Kushner has joined the talks with Putin.
Witkoff and Kushner are expected to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Wednesday in Europe and brief him on the talks with Putin, according to two sources with knowledge.
The U.S. envoys were expected to present Putin with the revised U.S. peace plan, which was whittled from 28 points down to 19 during talks with the Ukrainians.
Catch up quick: Witkoff, Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with a Ukrainian delegation headed by Zelensky’s national security adviser Rustem Umerov on Sunday in Miami.
Those negotiations focused on where the de facto border with Russia would be drawn under a peace deal. Putin insists Russia won’t stop the war until it controls the entire Donbas region in eastern Ukraine.
The U.S. wants Ukraine to hand over territory there to convince Putin to make peace, but that would be a painful and politically explosive concession.
Zelensky said Ukraine’s top general briefed the Americans “on the real situation at the front,” and discussed “implementing various steps at the front…in the event of a ceasefire.” He also said the 19-point plan was “further revised” during the Miami talks.
Driving the news: Witkoff held two additional meetings with Umerov on Sunday evening and Monday morning before heading to Moscow.
Zelensky and French President Emmanuel Macron also held a call with Witkoff and Umerov during Zelensky’s visit to Paris on Monday.
After his meeting with Zelensky, Macron spoke to Trump about the path forward for the peace process. Macron stressed “the importance of the security guarantees required for Ukraine and our determination to work on them together with the U.S.,” a French official said.
The latest: While Kushner and Witkoff were preparing to meet Putin in Moscow, Zelensky met with his negotiating team in Dublin. The Ukrainian president said they’d discussed things “that cannot be said over the phone.”
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