US President Donald Trump’s Ukraine peace efforts came under scrutiny in Kyiv on Sunday as his envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, faced pointed questions over their repeated engagement with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The confrontation came during a joint news conference involving the US representatives and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, where journalist Dmytro Gordon questioned whether Putin had been misleading Trump’s team during their negotiations. Gordon also challenged the envoys over their willingness to meet the Russian leader, whom he described as a war criminal responsible for the suffering in Ukraine.
The exchange followed a three-hour meeting between Witkoff, Kushner and Putin in Moscow on Saturday. The US envoys subsequently travelled to Kyiv for discussions with Zelensky, who described the talks as “very substantive” and indicated that Ukraine remained open to direct trilateral negotiations involving Kyiv, Moscow and Washington.
The diplomatic activity comes as Washington seeks to narrow the differences between Russia and Ukraine and push the two sides towards a negotiated settlement. Trump is expected to hold separate telephone conversations with Putin and Zelensky on Monday as efforts continue to move the peace process forward.
While diplomatic contacts intensified, conditions on the ground offered a starkly different picture. Kyiv has experienced an unprecedented level of air-raid alerts since Russia launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, according to an analysis of Ukrainian government data by BBC Verify.
