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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Sunday that resolving the territorial disputes at the heart of the war with Russia would require a direct summit between heads of state, after US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks in Kyiv without signaling any breakthrough toward ending the four-year conflict.
"I want to stick to my view that such complex issues can only be resolved at the level of leaders," Zelenskyy said, reiterating his previous calls for a face-to-face meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Witkoff and Kushner arrived in the Ukrainian capital Sunday for their first trip there, a day after meeting Putin at the Kremlin.
Witkoff, a business ally of President Donald Trump, and Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, had previously traveled to Moscow several times but had not held talks in Kyiv, which has endured deadly Russian strikes throughout the war.
The delegation arrived by train, as is customary for visiting officials, with "Peace Express" marked on the platform at Kyiv Central Station.
Zelenskyy said Ukraine had "prepared everything to make our airports operational," but Russian strikes have kept the country's airspace closed since the 2022 invasion, ruling out arrival by plane.
Russia and Ukraine had pledged not to strike each other's capitals during the envoys' trip.
Describing the discussion, Witkoff said the two sides had "a very meaningful discussion, substantive, important," adding that both Ukraine and Russia would need to make concessions.
"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," he said.
Kushner said he believed the visit had produced "some new ways to advance forward."
A separate round of talks also took place Sunday with British, French and German representatives present.
"We are grateful that the Europeans are with us today and that we are in such a coalition of countries," Zelenskyy said. "Here we are all on the same side."
Despite describing a "positive assessment" of the discussions, Zelenskyy said the war was likely to continue through the winter.
"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," he said.
A White House official told AFP that during the Moscow leg of the trip, the envoys had "discussed substantive plans which will be announced in the coming weeks."
The Kremlin said the Americans had "put forward a number of ideas on possible routes to a settlement" but gave no further detail. Trump has said his envoys were carrying a "proposal" to end the fighting, saying only, "We have an idea for peace."
Efforts by the Trump administration to broker a quick end to the war have stalled in part because of Washington's separate conflict with Iran, according to the material provided.
Even as the ceasefire pledge covering the two capitals held, fighting continued elsewhere.
Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 108 drones and missiles overnight, while Moscow said it shot down 258 Ukrainian drones. Ukrainian officials said 10 people, including an 11-year-old boy, were killed in Russian strikes on Saturday.
Russia had also struck the headquarters of Ukraine's SBU security service in central Kyiv in the days before the envoys' visit. Putin told the American envoys Saturday that Moscow would guarantee their safety while in Kyiv.
Russia's full-scale invasion, launched in February 2022, has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced millions, and Putin has repeatedly said Moscow intends to seize the remainder of eastern Ukraine. Russian strikes intensified over the summer.
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