War with Russia “at the moment” looked likely to continue into winter, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Sunday, after holding talks with US envoys visiting Kyiv.
After holding talks with visiting US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Sunday that the war between Russia and Ukraine currently appears likely to continue into the winter.
Zelenskyy and Witkoff both gave positive assessments of their discussions in Kyiv, but neither side announced a breakthrough towards ending the more than four-year-old war.
Witkoff, a business ally of US President Donald Trump, and Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, travelled to Kyiv a day after meeting Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Their visit marked their first trip to the Ukrainian capital, which has faced deadly Russian strikes throughout the conflict.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine hoped to reach agreements with its American partners while seeking continued backing from European allies if the fighting extends into the winter.
“We very much hope that we will be able to reach agreements with our American partners, and we are counting on the support of our European partners if the war continues in winter — and this is how it appears at the moment,” Zelenskyy said.
Witkoff said both Moscow and Kyiv would need to make compromises to bring the conflict to an end.
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“It’s going to take both sides to make some compromises and narrow the issues between them and we think we have the ingredients to get to that place,” Witkoff said after meeting Zelenskyy.
He acknowledged the difficulty of the diplomatic effort but said the United States remained committed to finding a peaceful solution.
“It is very difficult but we are committed, we care and we hope all of that leads to a successful peaceful diplomatic resolution,” Witkoff added.
The Ukrainian president said that the US planned to increase production of Patriot interceptor missiles next year, with Germany also expanding its own production under existing licensing agreements.
Zelenskyy said that Russia had intensified strikes on Ukrainian cities before Russia’s State Duma election later this month, calling the attacks deliberate “terror” against civilians, and said that Ukraine was working with 67 domestic companies developing systems to shoot down Russia’s jet-powered drones at scale.
The Ukrainian leader said the territorial question “remains relevant,” but reiterated his view that such difficult issues “can only be resolved at the level of leaders.” Zelenskyy said that the talks also touched on long-term security guarantees and economic support for Ukraine’s postwar reconstruction. He said that a strong Ukrainian army remained “one of the main guarantees of security.”
Zelenskyy said that the sides had agreed to hold a follow-up meeting involving Ukraine, the U.S. and Europe, though a location has not been set.
Witkoff said that the U.S. was pursuing “a diplomatic resolution to this conflict, not a kinetic resolution.” Referring to the previous day’s talks, he said that the meeting in Moscow had produced “new ideas” that were later brought to Kyiv, and pointed to the presence of national security advisers from the so-called E3 nations — France, Germany and the UK — as evidence that “collaboration is critical” to reaching a deal.
Both sides would need to make compromises, Witkoff said, adding: “We think we have the ingredients to get to that place.”
Asked whether Washington was prepared to increase pressure on Russia if the talks produced no breakthrough, Kushner said that the U.S. approach was to look for a “win-win” outcome.
He said that his father-in-law, US President Donald Trump, was focused not just on ending the fighting but on building “a framework that could actually lead to a durable peace,” and that he and Witkoff had held a “constructive and substantive” meeting with Putin a day earlier, discussing what Russia, Ukraine and the wider world could each gain from a settlement.
Kushner said that the two envoys hoped to revive trilateral talks involving Russia and Ukraine directly, a format last used roughly six months earlier, and said that Washington remained in near-daily contact with Ukrainian officials even between visits.
No breakthroughs in Moscow talks
Saturday’s meeting in Moscow lasted more than three hours behind closed doors and ended without any major developments being announced. Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, described the talks as constructive, frank and useful, but he didn’t discuss specific outcomes.
While Moscow offered its “comprehensive assessment” of the battlefield situation in Ukraine, Ushakov said, the talks weren’t purely focused on the war in Ukraine.
“Economic issues and potentially large, mutually beneficial joint projects for Russia and America were discussed in considerable detail,” he said.
The last known visit to Moscow by Witkoff and Kushner was in January when they also held talks with Putin at the Kremlin.
With inputs from agencies