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U.S. President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and special envoy Jared Kushner said Washington hopes to announce the “next steps” in efforts to end the Ukraine war within the next couple of weeks, following talks with Russian and Ukrainian leaders in Moscow and Kyiv.
Kushner and U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to both capitals last week in an effort to revive U.S.-led diplomacy aimed at ending more than four years of war. The trip marked their first visit to Kyiv.
“I really hope in the next couple of weeks we’ll be able to announce what the next steps are,” Kushner told the Yalta European Strategy forum in Kyiv by video link Friday, in remarks released Saturday.
“And hopefully that will bring us closer to a pathway forward,” he added.
Kushner said Russian President Vladimir Putin had laid out the territorial line Moscow wants to achieve, while Ukraine does not want to withdraw to that line.
“President Putin’s laid out his line of what he wants to achieve. If Ukraine wanted to withdraw to that line, then obviously, we have the rest of the deal set up and put together,” Kushner said.
“Ukraine right now does not want to do that.”
He said the role of U.S. mediators was to find a solution that could address Ukraine’s concerns while persuading Russia to end the conflict.
“Our job as the mediators is to figure out how can we come up with a creative solution that doesn’t violate their desires and that helps them achieve their objective,” Kushner said.
He added that Washington was seeking a framework that would allow both sides to move forward and prevent the conflict from happening again.
Kushner said Putin was “committed” to finding “a way forward,” a remark that drew laughter from the audience in Kyiv.
The U.S. envoys met both Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during the trip. They expressed optimism but announced no breakthrough in the diplomatic deadlock.
“These are terribly complex problems. But I think we’re continuing to work forward,” Kushner said. “I think the engagement with both sides has been very constructive and very positive.”
Several rounds of negotiations last year resulted only in exchanges of prisoners of war, while Moscow and Kyiv have maintained their positions.
U.S. officials said there had been progress during the Kyiv talks and suggested trilateral discussions could take place.
Asked whether he and Witkoff would return to Kyiv, Kushner said: “We’ll be back when there’s something to talk about, when it’s needed.”
Kushner said the economic consequences of the conflict were severe.
“The economic costs of war are tremendous,” he said. “War is just negative sum and everyone loses from war, and I think that economics and business and peace is very, very positive sum.”
He described his first visit to Ukraine as “very special” and praised the country’s “resilience.”
Kushner said he had spent the past year engaging with Ukrainian and European officials and had gained a strong understanding of what Ukraine had achieved and the cost of the war.
Kushner also welcomed the three-day ceasefire observed during the U.S. envoys’ visit.
“We’re very happy we were able to deliver a three-day ceasefire so we can make the trip,” he said. “But hopefully we turn that into something much longer, much more enduring.”
Both Russia and Ukraine had agreed not to attack their main cities during the talks with U.S. officials.
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