Witkoff and Kushner Sit With Putin More Than Three Hours, Carry Proposal On to Kyiv

President Donald Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday for more than three hours, then stayed for dinner, in the first Moscow stop of a weekend push Trump said was built around “an idea for peace” in Ukraine.

Kremlin foreign-policy aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters the session lasted three hours and 10 minutes and called the exchange “meaningful, constructive, extremely frank and trusting.” He said the Americans “outlined a number of ideas regarding possible avenues for a settlement” and promised to carry Putin’s “observations and assessments” into Sunday talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Ushakov gave no detail on the ideas themselves.

Putin, greeting the pair on camera, said the situation “is certainly not simple,” asked them to convey gratitude to Trump, and said contacts with Washington are “always useful.” He added that he is “comfortable” working with Witkoff and Kushner and that there is “quite a high level of trust.” On the Russian side, Presidential Aide Yury Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriev of the Russian Direct Investment Fund sat in.

The meeting is the first hard development since Friday, when Trump announced he had dispatched the pair and the Kremlin said Putin had ordered a three-day halt to strikes on Kyiv to cover their travel. Putin made the limit explicit Saturday: the pause covers the capital, not the rest of the country, and Russia never agreed to the broader three-day truce Zelensky had publicly floated. He said Ukraine had already cut strikes on Russian territory, including Moscow, “by an order of magnitude,” and that he issued the Kyiv order after requests came through intelligence channels and the Foreign Ministry.

A White House official told Reuters the talks were “substantive” and that “next steps” would be announced in the coming weeks. There was no on-the-record comment from Witkoff or Kushner after the Kremlin session. CNN, citing a Kremlin briefing, said dinner followed the formal meeting. The pair landed Saturday at Vnukovo and were met by Dmitriev. They had not been in Moscow since January.

Nothing released Saturday showed Moscow walking back its battlefield claims or its insistence on addressing what Putin calls the “root causes” of the war. Ushakov said Putin told the Americans Russia is making “real progress” on the ground and is confident of its goals. Independent accounts of the day described hospitality without visible concessions.

Sunday’s Kyiv stop is the first wartime visit to the Ukrainian capital by this pair. The test is narrow and public: whether the limited Kyiv pause holds, whether Zelensky is handed the same proposal Putin heard, and whether Trump’s “idea for peace” is a ceasefire plan or another round of talking points. The United States has not published the paper.