Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will visit Russia and Ukraine this weekend to help restart peace talks.
Published September 4, 2026
US President Donald Trump said special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will travel this weekend to restart peace talks between Ukraine and Russia.
Speaking at the White House on Friday, Trump said Witkoff and his son-in-law Kushner were preparing to travel to Kiev and Moscow this weekend, bringing with them proposals to “end the war.”
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“I sent Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to see if we could get something done,” Trump said. “And there’s a good chance we’ll make it happen.”
“We have ideas for peace,” Trump said, without going into details about his administration’s plans.
Witkov and Kushner will visit Moscow on Saturday and Sunday, Russia’s state-run TASS news agency said, in their first trip since January.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said the two would travel to Ukraine on Sunday, marking Trump’s first trip to Ukraine since returning to power.
Russian President Vladimir Putin recently said negotiations were “frozen”. But the talks, scheduled for this weekend, come as the two countries continue to step up airstrikes, including Russia’s attack on the headquarters of Ukraine’s security forces on Friday.
Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least 12 people were injured in the attack.
Al Jazeera’s Audrey McAlpine, reporting from Kiev, said people were not shocked by the attack on the SBU building, but were wondering what the next target would be.
“It’s not so much that people never expected the SBU to be attacked, but it raises a lot of questions about if Russia can attack this, what else can it attack,” she said. “Some people here are wondering, for example, whether this attack might be aimed at dissuading the U.S. envoy from visiting Ukraine.”
President Trump told reporters on Friday that the peace agreement in the more than four-year-old conflict was due to “personal issues” between the two countries.
“I truly hate President Zelensky and President Putin,” Trump said. “They have a deep hatred, and it’s getting in the way.”
Exact numbers are unknown, but a study released in July by the Center for Strategic and International Studies said the war cost Russia about 450,000 lives. It is estimated that between 125,000 and 150,000 people died in Ukraine.
