Two of Donald Trump’s closest emissaries touched down in Moscow on Saturday, carrying what the White House has described as a fresh proposal to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, now well into its fifth year. Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for peace missions, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and longtime informal adviser, were met at Vnukovo airport by Kirill Dmitriev, Vladimir Putin’s special representative for economic and investment cooperation.

Welcome to Moscow Peacemakers

That greeting, attributed to Dmitriev by The Washington Post, set the tone for a day of high-stakes diplomacy. Trump announced the trip on Friday, saying the envoys would travel on to Kyiv after their Moscow meetings, a stop that would mark their first-ever visit to the Ukrainian capital since the peace effort began.

A pause in strikes, then an escalation

The Kremlin said Putin had ordered a three-day pause on strikes against Kyiv, beginning at midnight Saturday, explicitly tying the halt to the American delegation’s planned visit. A Kremlin statement, reported by CNN, said the pause was connected with the preparation for and conduct of the Americans’ contacts in Kyiv.

Yet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Russian missiles struck two airports near the capital, including Boryspil, which previously handled international flights, in the hours surrounding the envoys’ travel. Zelensky suggested the strikes were not incidental.

Evidently, these Russian strikes on airports are a reaction to discussions and preparations regarding the possibility of the American

According to CNN, Zelensky’s remarks pointed to speculation that a US aircraft might land at a Kyiv-area airport as part of the delegation’s visit, a detail that could explain why airport infrastructure came under fire even as the wider capital was meant to be spared.

A long diplomatic road

Witkoff and Kushner last visited Moscow in January 2026, when they met Putin at the Kremlin. Since then, the war has ground on with no breakthrough, and both Russian and Ukrainian forces have escalated drone and missile strikes in recent weeks, according to Euronews and the South China Morning Post.

Officials in Washington, Moscow and Kyiv have each characterised the current visit as an attempt to break that stalemate. Putin was scheduled to meet the delegation later Saturday in Moscow, before Witkoff and Kushner proceed to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian officials, according to CNBC and CBS News.

No details of the American proposal’s contents have been made public. For now, the immediate test is whether the temporary pause on strikes over Kyiv holds long enough for the delegation to complete its visit, and whether that visit produces any tangible shift after more than four years of war.

This article is free to read. It always will be — no paywall, no account, no tracking.