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The United States is seeking to restart direct peace talks between Russia and Ukraine after Donald Trump’s envoys held separate meetings with Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky.
Steve Witkoff, the US president’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, said they believed a fresh three-way meeting between Washington, Moscow and Kyiv could be arranged soon after a weekend of shuttle diplomacy between the two capitals.
The pair travelled to Kyiv after holding more than three hours of talks with Putin at the Kremlin on Saturday, part of a renewed American attempt to end a war now in its fifth year.
Witkoff said the talks in both capitals had been “substantive” and “meaningful”, adding that the envoys were “encouraged” by the discussions.
Kushner said Washington now hoped to return to a format in which Russian, Ukrainian and American officials negotiated directly with one another.
“One thing Steve and I really thought would be productive is to go back to the trilateral format, which we were able to do about six months ago,” he said.
“And we’ve spoken with both parties, and so hopefully we’ll have progress on that very soon.”
Zelensky welcomed the attempt to revive negotiations but warned that there had been no breakthrough and said he expected the war to continue into the winter.
“We all want the war to end,” he said after the talks.
National security advisers from Britain, France and Germany also joined discussions in Kyiv, which covered security guarantees, economic assistance and supplies of Patriot air defence missiles as Ukraine prepares for renewed Russian attacks on its energy network.
The principal obstacle remains the future of Donbas, the industrial region in eastern Ukraine where Russia occupies large areas but has failed to capture all of Donetsk.
Moscow has demanded that Ukrainian troops withdraw from territory they still control, a condition Kyiv has repeatedly rejected.
“The question of Donbas, I believe, is the question of this war,” Zelensky has said.
Russia’s full-scale invasion began on February 24, 2022, meaning the conflict has now lasted more than four and a half years. But the wider war between the two countries began in 2014, when Russia seized and annexed Crimea and Russian-backed forces took control of parts of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.
The human cost has been enormous, and casualty figures are difficult to verify because neither side publishes complete figures for its losses.
The Centre for Strategic and International Studies estimated in July that Russia had suffered about 1.4 million military casualties, including those killed, wounded and missing, between the start of the invasion and June this year. Of those, between 400,000 and 450,000 are believed to have been killed.
Ukraine is estimated to have suffered between 525,000 and 625,000 military casualties over the same period, including between 125,000 and 150,000 dead.
That would put combined military casualties at more than two million, although the true toll may not be known for years.
The Kremlin has signalled that it is willing to consider returning to direct negotiations.
Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s spokesman, said Moscow did not rule out a resumption of talks involving Russia, Ukraine and the United States, although it was too early to discuss a venue or date.
The latest attempt to secure peace follows months of diplomatic stalemate, with Moscow continuing to reject a ceasefire along the existing front line and demanding concessions over territory.
Putin has repeatedly insisted that any settlement must address what he describes as the “root causes” of the conflict, language Moscow has used to encompass its demands over Ukrainian territory and the country’s future security arrangements.
The fragility of the latest peace effort was underlined on Tuesday when Russia launched a large missile and drone attack on Kyiv shortly after the American envoys had left the Ukrainian capital.
The strike killed three people and wounded 16, according to Ukrainian officials, and damaged apartment blocks, a school, a clinic and other buildings.
Russia and Ukraine had temporarily stopped attacks on each other’s capitals while the American delegation travelled between Moscow and Kyiv.
“The moment the US president’s peace envoys left, Putin launched another massive, horrific attack against Kyiv,” Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, said.
Zelensky said Russia had used ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, anti-ship weapons and fast jet-powered drones in the attack.
The renewed bombardment highlighted the gulf that still separates the two sides.
Russia wants any peace settlement to reflect the territory it has captured during the war, while Ukraine argues that being forced to surrender land would reward aggression and leave the country vulnerable to another invasion.
Trump has repeatedly said he wants to end the conflict through negotiation and has pushed both sides to make compromises.
But despite the renewed diplomacy, there is still no ceasefire and no agreed date for the next round of negotiations.
Both Moscow and Kyiv have, however, left open the possibility of returning to direct talks, giving the White House another opportunity to revive a peace process that has repeatedly stalled.
