> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.theoceaniacables.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # US Peace Envoys Meet Putin, Head to Kyiv Next - URL: https://www.theoceaniacables.com/us-peace-envoys-meet-putin-head-to-kyiv-next/ - Published: 2026-09-05T22:45:43.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-05T23:16:34.000Z - Author: The Oceania Cables - Tags: Russia, Ukraine, United States, Conflict, Diplomacy ### **Summary:** U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on 5 September 2026\. The meeting, attended by senior Russian officials, was followed by a temporary pause in air strikes on Kyiv, which Putin said he ordered after a request through intelligence and diplomatic channels. He said Ukraine had also reduced strikes on Russian territory, including Moscow, and that Russia had not agreed to a broader three-day truce. After speaking with the same envoys, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine would refrain from strikes on Moscow through Monday and expected the same for Kyiv. Witkoff and Kushner are now proceeding to Kyiv for talks with Zelenskyy. The shuttle takes place against weeks of heavy strikes by both sides. ### **Detailed Report** ### **1\. Putin Receives the US Peace Delegation in Moscow** U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin on 5 September 2026, in a session attended by Yury Ushakov, Aide to the President of Russia and a former Russian ambassador to Washington, and by Kirill Dmitriev, CEO of the Russian Direct Investment Fund. In a subsequent readout, Ushakov described it as the envoys' eighth visit to Russia. The meeting followed President Donald Trump's 4 September announcement that his envoys were carrying a proposal to end the war, though the text of the proposal has not been made public. "We have an idea for peace," Trump said. "There may be a good chance that we'll do it." During the opening exchange, Putin confirmed that, following a request through intelligence and diplomatic channels, he ordered a halt to Russian air strikes on Kyiv from midnight on 5 September. He said Ukraine had also "significantly reduced" its strikes on Russian territory, including Moscow. He clarified that while Ukraine had called for a broader three-day truce, Russia had not agreed to those terms. Russia's commitment, he said, was limited to the safety of the negotiation process and the mediators. According to Ushakov, the conversation lasted three hours and ten minutes and was "meaningful, constructive, extremely frank and trusting," continuing both in formal session and over dinner. He said the Russian side gave the envoys its assessment of the situation on the battlefield, pointed to Russian advances, and stressed what Putin called the need to eliminate the "root causes" of the conflict. Putin, Ushakov said, confirmed his determination to keep working with the United States toward a political and diplomatic settlement, and Witkoff and Kushner undertook to relay his assessments during their talks in Kyiv. Ushakov said the discussions were not limited to Ukraine, extending to economic questions and possible large-scale Russian-American projects. He added that the two presidents would continue direct personal contact and that Witkoff and Kushner's work would carry on. The closed session was not transcribed, and no fuller account has been released. The encounter also included acknowledgment of the recent release of Robert Gilman, a U.S. Marine veteran, from Russian detention, with Ushakov crediting President Trump, who made the direct appeal. ### ### **2\. From Moscow to Kyiv: The Second Leg of the Shuttle** Following the Moscow meeting, Witkoff and Kushner are scheduled to travel to Kyiv on 6 September for their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since President Trump took office for his second term. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the talks and spoke with the U.S. envoys by phone on 5 September after they had begun work with the Russian side. From that conversation through Monday, he said, Ukraine would refrain from strikes on Moscow and expected Russia to do the same regarding Kyiv. "We are waiting for Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner and are ready for a substantive conversation." Ukrainian officials have treated that restraint as a measure to facilitate the visit, not a ceasefire on the front. Overnight, before the pause on Kyiv took effect, Zelenskyy said Russia had struck Kyiv's Zhulyany airport and Boryspil, the fields discussed as possible landing points for an American aircraft. ### ### **3\. August's Air War on Energy, Industry and Cities** In the weeks before the shuttle, both sides kept up large air attacks on energy, industry and cities. In August, Ukrainian forces struck Russian oil refineries at least 21 times, according to a plant-by-plant tally by bne IntelliNews. Bloomberg separately described that month as the highest number of refinery attacks it had recorded. Four of Russia's ten largest plants were among the targets. Crude runs were cited near 3.8 million barrels a day against a normal summer of 5.3 to 5.6 million, and petrol queues spread inside Russia. Mid-August waves also hit grain terminals at Novorossiysk and a Wildberries warehouse. On 16 August, Russian officials described more than 800 drones, about 600 of them toward Moscow, as the largest Ukrainian attack of the year. On the front, the two air forces published rival August tallies. The Ukrainian Air Force said it flew about 300 glide-bomb sorties, an average of 9.7 a day, unchanged from July. The Ukrainian General Staff said Russia launched more than 8,673 glide bombs in August, about 280 a day, up from 8,300 in July. On 5 August, reporting put 24 ballistic missiles against Kyiv. On 20 August, a mixed attack on the capital killed 18 people in one tally and hit aircraft plants and warehouses. At the end of August, a strike on a warehouse near Myla, in Kyiv Oblast, set off secondary detonations that killed at least 37 people. Energy hits on 29 August left more than 300,000 people in Mykolaiv without power. ### ### **4\. The Weekend of the Shuttle: Strikes on Both Sides** The pattern held through the weekend of the shuttle. On 4 September a drone that Ukrainian officials attributed to Russia hit the headquarters of the Security Service of Ukraine in central Kyiv. OSINT mapping accounts later circulated video they identified as a Geran-4 jet-powered drone striking the office of acting head Oleksandr Poklad. Overnight strikes also targeted both of Kyiv's airports, which Zelenskyy linked to talk of an American aircraft landing there. Moscow has not claimed or denied the security-service building. Overnight into 6 September, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia launched 167 Geran and Gerbera drones. The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine launched at least 53 mid-to-long-range drones and that 53 were shot down over Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Ryazan, Tula and Moscow oblasts, as well as Krasnodar Krai, Crimea and the Black Sea. Mapping accounts reported unusually low Ukrainian long-range activity by Sunday morning. Russian and mapping accounts put Banderol cruise missiles against Dnipro and Samar in that same window. A Geran-4 struck the Chayky logistics centre west of Kyiv and started a fire. Further Geran-4 impacts hit a truck park in Zaporizhzhia. Eight ballistic missiles, including Kn-23 and Iskander-M types, struck the Kametstal metallurgical plant in Kamianske, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast. The Russian Defence Ministry said the plant supplied metal to Ukraine's military industry. It also said it had hit logistics and energy sites in Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kyiv oblasts, including a dry-cargo ship at Chornomorsk. NASA fire data showed large blazes at Kametstal after the eight missiles. ### **Conclusion** Witkoff and Kushner have completed their meeting with President Putin in Moscow. A pause in air strikes on Kyiv is in effect from midnight on 5 September; Zelenskyy has said Ukraine will hold strikes on Moscow through Monday. The envoys now move to Kyiv.