{"id":188437,"date":"2026-07-03T03:50:20","date_gmt":"2026-07-03T03:50:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/188437\/"},"modified":"2026-07-03T03:50:20","modified_gmt":"2026-07-03T03:50:20","slug":"report-witkoff-kushner-engaged-on-ukraine-despite-iran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/188437\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Witkoff, Kushner Engaged on Ukraine Despite Iran"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"<p>Steve<\/p>\n

Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (Getty)<\/p>\n

U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, have remained in touch with Ukrainian and Russian officials almost daily despite focusing on negotiating a permanent peace deal with Iran, The New York Times<\/a> reported.<\/p>\n

The war between Ukraine and Russia has escalated in recent weeks, shifting from a grinding front-line stalemate to a destructive exchange of long-range strikes on each other’s critical infrastructure.<\/p>\n

The Times reported that analysts describe the situation as one of the most volatile and dangerous periods since Russia’s invasion of February 2022.<\/p>\n

Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Doha, Qatar, this week for another round<\/a> of indirect talks with Iran, even as Ukraine was launching more drones toward Moscow.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Russia was readying its latest salvo targeting Kyiv, where at least 21 people were reported killed Thursday in overnight attacks.<\/p>\n

A senior U.S. official, speaking to the Times on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the talks, said Witkoff and Kushner have held in-person meetings with Ukrainian and Russian officials that have not been reported.<\/p>\n

The official said Witkoff and Kushner were prepared to travel to Russia and Ukraine if there was something new to discuss, but they would not travel “for a photo op.”<\/p>\n

The last time Russian and Ukrainian officials are known to have met face-to-face with Witkoff and Kushner was in Switzerland in February, according to the Times.<\/p>\n

In the months since, the Iran conflict has consumed their attention, even as the fighting escalated between Russia and Ukraine.<\/p>\n

“We were focused on Iran,” Trump said last month, suggesting the administration could renew its efforts to end the Ukraine war once Iran was “in the rearview mirror.”<\/p>\n

Trump has adopted a slimmed-down approach to high-stakes diplomacy in his second term.<\/p>\n

The post of U.S. ambassador to Moscow has been vacant for more than a year, and acting U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Julie Davis announced her resignation <\/a>in April, effective June 27.<\/p>\n

Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top diplomats have played a limited role on Ukraine, leaving Witkoff and Kushner as the pivotal players.<\/p>\n

To Moscow and Kyiv, Witkoff and Kushner are valuable contacts with direct lines to Trump. They also represent a bottleneck without the diplomatic teams that would typically lay the groundwork for high-level talks.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy voiced frustration to CBS News on Thursday, saying he was still waiting for them to visit Ukraine, according to the Times.<\/p>\n

“I understand that there are challenges in the Middle East,” he said, adding, “but we need more, more than words.”<\/p>\n

Witkoff and Kushner, who helped broker a ceasefire last year in Israel’s war against Iranian-backed Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, are real estate developers who describe themselves as dealmakers who eschew the staid traditions of diplomacy, according to the Times.<\/p>\n

The senior U.S. official told the newspaper that approach means they juggle multiple negotiations at a time, just as they did in their business careers and as Kushner did during Trump’s first term, when he served as a White House adviser. Kushner played a major role in brokering the Abraham Accords.<\/p>\n

In Moscow, officials are also eager for Witkoff and Kushner to reengage, the Times reported, citing two people close to the Kremlin and two former diplomats who visited Moscow last week.<\/p>\n

“The Russians are desperately waiting for the return of Witkoff and Kushner,” said one of the former diplomats, Thomas Greminger, the head of a Swiss think tank who traveled to Moscow for a foreign policy conference.<\/p>\n

“There’s a lot of frustration about the two. At the same time, nobody has an alternative to U.S. facilitation.”<\/p>\n

Russian President Vladimir Putin values his relationship with Witkoff in particular, the two people close to the Kremlin said.<\/p>\n

Putin sees Trump’s close friend as a crucial channel for accomplishing Kremlin goals that only the U.S. can deliver, including an arrangement keeping Ukraine out of NATO.<\/p>\n

But the Times reported that Russian officials have grown frustrated by the uneven nature of those visits and the lack of follow-up.<\/p>\n

According to people familiar with the negotiations, they have voiced a desire for a more structured diplomatic process.<\/p>\n

\u00a9 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner (Getty) U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump’s son-in-law,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":188438,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[34,2018,2155,864,55,56320,2017,56,4689],"class_list":["post-188437","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-iran","tag-iran","tag-jared-kushner","tag-moscow","tag-president-donald-trump","tag-russia","tag-russian-officials","tag-steve-witkoff","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-war"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116854012362299239","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=188437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/188437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/188438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=188437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=188437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=188437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}