Jared Kushner will join Steve Witkoff at a meeting with President Putin in Moscow on Tuesday after the White House said it was “very optimistic” about a deal being reached to end the war in Ukraine.
President Trump’s son-in-law and the White House special envoy have become the lead American negotiators in talks with Russia after almost four years of war, and have effectively sidelined Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state.
Rubio is seen as more sympathetic to Ukraine and helped to redraft the 28-point peace plan originally negotiated by Witkoff, Kushner and Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, in secret talks in Miami at the end of October.
• Sign up for The Times’s weekly US newsletter
Jared Kushner is married to the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump
JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON/AP
However Rubio will not be travelling to Moscow, leaving Witkoff and Kushner, whose extensive business interests have often run in parallel to their diplomacy, to relay the Ukrainian counter-offer at a crucial stage in the war.
On Monday, Trump’s press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said: “I think the administration feels very optimistic,” after talks between the US officials and a Ukrainian delegation in Florida on Sunday.
Witkoff and Kushner speak to Ukraine’s security chiefs alongside Marco Rubio in Florida on Sunday
EVA MARIE UZCATEGUI/REUTERS
The president and his team “have been working so hard on this effort and they all really want to see this war come to an end”, she added. “Just yesterday … they had very good talks with the Ukrainians in Florida and now of course Special Envoy Witkoff is on his way to Russia.”
• Putin keeps Steve Witkoff waiting as talks are pushed to Tuesday
Before his meeting with US officials, Russian media reported on a visit by Putin to a military command post, where he was told by top commanders on Sunday that their troops had captured the city of Pokrovsk, a logistics hub of significant strategic importance. Moscow has made similar claims in the past, which Ukraine has frequently dismissed.
A video published on Monday showed Putin dressed in military fatigues, growing visibly angry after being told that Ukrainian soldiers were dying by the hundreds. “This is a tragedy — a tragedy for the Ukrainian people, connected to the criminal policies of the thieving junta,” Putin said.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, cautioned that “loud statements” by Putin were issued “exclusively for the western audience and to raise diplomatic stakes” before discussions in Moscow on a possible peace plan.
President Putin visiting a command post in Russia
AFP/RUSSIAN PRESIDENTIAL PRESS OFFICE
The original 28-point plan negotiated by Witkoff and Kushner last month was seen as overly generous to the Kremlin as it required Ukraine to surrender land and limit its armed forces to 600,000 troops, among other concessions.
Kushner, 44, the husband of Ivanka Trump, appears to be playing an increasingly active role in US diplomacy despite no longer having any formal role in the White House as he did during the president’s first administration.
His business ties with the Gulf, including a $2 billion investment by the Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund into his private equity firm months after he left government in 2021, helped smooth the path towards the Gaza deal.
He has also had dealings with Russian officials in the past, including attending a meeting in New York with Sergei Gorkov, head of the Russian state development bank, after the 2016 election.
Kushner said at the time that he did not discuss with Gorkov “my companies, business transactions, real-estate projects, loans, banking arrangements or any private business of any kind”.
In the lead-up to the Moscow summit, Putin has shown little appetite for restraint, insisting that the fighting will only end once Ukraine withdraws from all the territory claimed by Russia.
Sergei Gorkov and Putin in 2016
MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV/SPUTNIK/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
• Ukraine accepts ‘core terms’ of plan that could give peace a chance
In 2022, Putin declared the entirety of Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Donetsk and Luhansk as part of Russia, in addition to Crimea, the peninsula annexed in 2014.
Ukrainian servicemen near the frontline town of Pokrovsk in Donetsk
ANATOLII STEPANOV/REUTERS
Despite some advances by Russian troops around Pokrovsk in recent weeks, some of which have been verified, the Kremlin continues to struggle to push Ukraine out of all the areas it claims.
Speaking in Paris on Monday after meeting Emmanuel Macron, President Zelensky said the renegotiated 19-point peace deal was an improvement on the original 28-point plan. “The plan that we have is better,” he said. “The question of territory and land is probably the most difficult”.
‘While in Paris, Zelensky also held a call with Witkoff. The Ukrainian president was supported by Macron and Sir Keir Starmer on the call.
Witkoff held a further meeting on Monday with Rustem Umerov, the lead Ukrainian negotiator. At the US-Ukraine talks in Florida this weekend, attended by Witkoff, Kushner and Rubio, Umerov said there had been “significant progress” but the peace plan still required “further refinement”.
Umerov wrote on X: “Grateful to the American side for their constructive and partnership approach. We agreed to maintain constant and close contact in continuing this process.”