US envoy Kushner calls trips to Moscow and Kyiv "very successful"

US President Donald Trump's special envoy Jared Kushner has described the trips to Moscow and Kyiv that he and his colleague Steve Witkoff made last week as "very successful".

Source: Jared Kushner on 11 September, during the annual Yalta European Strategy (YES) meeting in Kyiv, hosted by the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, as reported by European Pravda

Details: Kushner said the trip to Moscow and Kyiv was very important.

"I would say that it was a very successful trip," Kushner said, adding that the US delegation now has a good idea of the next steps. "I think in any hard problem you have to bring a framework to it where you define, number one, what are we trying to achieve."

He also said the US now has "a very clear sense as to what not just will end this" war, but also of what "can lead to something that's lasting and enduring".

Quote: "I think that's very very important. I think that we've defined that in a good way. I think getting the chance to get the updates from both sides was very very critical. Having the time with the Russians and to be able to probe on different questions, see what they're seeing, how they're seeing things, what flexibilities they may have. I think that that led to some new ideas that hopefully we'll be able to discuss at a trilateral [meeting] soon."

Details: Kushner added that they are working to organise such a meeting.

"What we found is that when we can get together with both parties, that's just much more productive than doing the shuttle diplomacy if you want to get it towards the end state," he emphasised.

Trump's special envoy also believes that neither side currently has a clear understanding of what the outcome of ending the Russia-Ukraine war should be.

"But our job as the mediator is obviously to be going to both sides, building the trust, listening to both sides, looking for areas of overlap. And then, looking for the opportunity to get that done or in some cases creating the opportunity to get that done," he said.

Background:

• On 6 September, the US presidential envoy Steve Witkoff said the task of the US delegation that visited Kyiv and Moscow was to "bring the sides closer together".
• President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said that three rounds of talks had taken place on 6 September and that all of them had been "very substantive"; they addressed possible parameters for ending the war and support for Ukraine in the short term.
• Kushner said at the time that an end to the war in Ukraine before winter is not guaranteed, but that the US side is working to create the conditions to achieve this goal.

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