Trump envoys Witkoff and Kushner to visit Moscow and Kyiv in first Ukraine trip

President Donald Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are planning to travel to Moscow and Kyiv in the coming days, a US official told CNN on Friday. A stop in the Ukrainian capital would be the pair’s first visit to Ukraine since the full-scale invasion began, though both have made earlier trips to Moscow.

Russia’s state-run TASS agency reported the visits were scheduled for Sept. 5 and 6, citing unnamed sources. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Thursday that Washington had confirmed meetings in both capitals.

“We have received confirmation from them: there will be meetings in Moscow and in Kyiv,” Zelensky said in his nightly address. “We expect the meetings to take place in the coming days. This is very important. It is important for the US to remain actively involved.”

Zelensky said he spoke with Witkoff and Kushner on Monday and that they were “locking in the dates” for the visit.

The planned trip is coming together as Moscow escalates its air campaign against Ukrainian cities. Kyiv has endured near-constant aerial attack for eight days, with strikes hitting buildings in the city center as well as warehouses and factories on the city’s outskirts — including one producing Coca-Cola. At least 53 people have been killed and 134 injured in Kyiv and the wider region since the sustained attacks began on Aug. 27.

Ukraine, meanwhile, has stepped up long-range strikes inside Russia, targeting fuel depots, refineries and commercial warehouses. Zelensky warned this week that Russia’s airspace “will effectively be closing” because of Ukrainian drones, while adding that Ukraine would ensure the skies were safe for any foreign delegation traveling to Moscow.

Any meaningful progress in these talks remains a difficult prospect. Putin has maintained maximalist demands that Kyiv rejects: territorial concessions, an end to Ukraine’s NATO ambitions and a drastic reduction in Ukraine’s military. Ukraine has shown no willingness to bargain over its core red lines, and Russia has shown no willingness to abandon its stated war aims.

The visit nonetheless offers the Trump administration a way to test whether Russia and Ukraine can sit at the same negotiating table in any form. Few, if any, expect an immediate breakthrough. But the fact that senior US envoys are heading to both capitals at a moment of intensified fighting is itself a signal that the diplomatic lane remains open.