US envoy Steve Witkoff, who held talks with Zelensky in Kyiv and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said both Moscow and Kyiv would need to make concessions to bring the more than four-year-old war to an end.
Kyiv, Ukraine: Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that the war with Russia currently appeared likely to continue into the winter, even as he described talks with visiting US envoys as having received a “positive assessment.”
“We very much hope that we will be able to reach agreements with our American partners, and we are counting on the support of our European partners -- if the war continues in winter, and this is how it appears at the moment -- but even so, the teams today have a positive assessment of our future prospects,” Zelenskyy said.
US envoy Steve Witkoff, who held talks with Zelenskyy in Kyiv and Russian President Vladimir Putin, said both Moscow and Kyiv would need to make concessions to bring the more than four-year-old war to an end.
“It's going to take both sides to make some compromises and narrow the issues between them, and we think we have the ingredients to get to that place,” Witkoff said after talks with Zelenskyy on his first Kyiv trip.
“It is very difficult, but we are committed, we care, and we hope all of that leads to a successful peaceful diplomatic resolution.”
Like all visiting officials, the American delegation arrived by train, with "Peace Express" written on the platform at Kyiv Central Station.
Zelenskyy said Kyiv had "prepared everything to make our airports operational", but that Russian strikes made arriving by plane impossible.
Ukrainian airspace has been closed since Russia launched its invasion in 2022.
Russia and Ukraine have vowed not to strike each other's capitals during the US envoys' trip.
Moscow's invasion of Ukraine has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions.
A White House official said in a statement to AFP that in Moscow the envoys had "discussed substantive plans which will be announced in the coming weeks".
The Kremlin said the Americans "put forward a number of ideas on possible routes to a settlement", but did not elaborate.
Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the rest of eastern Ukraine, and Russia increased deadly strikes this summer.
Since Putin launched the invasion in February 2022, the war has dragged on with no end in sight.
Published: 06 Sept 2026, 10:33 pm IST
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