US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner have arrived in Kyiv for the first time amid widespread scepticism that Washington’s renewed peace outreach would end Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

The pair were greeted by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy at the historic St Sophia’s Cathedral in central Kyiv in advance of talks.

The visit follows more than three hours of talks in Moscow on Saturday that a Kremlin aide called “highly useful”. Russian president Vladimir Putin opened the meeting by describing the situation in Ukraine as “not a simple one”. People familiar with the thinking in Kyiv said Ukraine is pessimistic about meaningful progress resulting from the Witkoff-Kushner visit.

Zelenskiy gathered his negotiating team in advance of the US envoys’ arrival.

“We are ready for the conversation. Ukraine has always been and will remain constructive,” Zelenskiy said on X. “Security guarantees are needed. A dignified character of the postwar peace is needed. Our proposals are ready.”

US president Donald Trump on Friday said his envoys were “bringing with them a proposal to end the war”, though he didn’t offer any details. Trump pledged that he could quickly engineer an end to the conflict upon returning to the White House in 2025, but the longest conflict in Europe since the second World War has proven tough to resolve.

Putin’s meeting with Witkoff and Kushner was “substantive, constructive, extremely frank and trusting,” Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov said in comments distributed by Russian media. “Our president reaffirmed his readiness to continue working jointly with the Americans to seek political and diplomatic solutions.”

They also discussed economic matters and potential Russian-US projects “in considerable detail”, Ushakov said. A White House official said the two sides discussed substantive plans for next steps, which will be announced in coming weeks.

Ukraine had expected the pair to visit Kyiv in April. That trip was repeatedly delayed as the White House’s attention became consumed by the US war in Iran.

The most recent round of talks brokered by the US took place in February. Little progress was seen as Putin insisted Ukraine must surrender the remainder of its eastern Donetsk region as part of any deal to end the war.

Ukraine has repeatedly rejected the demand to hand over a fortress belt of cities in that region, which Russia’s forces have failed to capture in fighting dating back to 2014.

While Putin ordered his troops to pause air strikes on Kyiv as the two envoys prepared to visit the Ukrainian capital, air-raid sirens sounded on and off in Kyiv on Saturday afternoon. The two sides continued to exchange drone fire overnight, including a strike on a major oil refinery deep within Russia, although Moscow and Kyiv were spared.

Multiple previous trips to Moscow by Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, and Witkoff, a real estate developer who has become a key figure in US diplomatic efforts from Israel to Karachi to Moscow, failed to yield progress. The Kremlin signalled no intention after Saturday’s talks to back away from its military goals in Ukraine.

Putin is ready to stop the war only on his own terms, and Moscow’s demands are getting tougher because it believes it has the military edge over Ukraine, according to people close to the Kremlin, who asked not to be identified discussing sensitive matters.

Russia’s new jet-powered drones are fuelling anxiety in Ukraine

“The Russian side pointed to what it described as the Russian army’s tangible successes in advancing in the combat zone, and expressed confidence that the stated objectives would be achieved,” Ushakov said.

As far back as December, Zelenskiy said a peace plan was “90 per cent agreed”, though talks have barely moved forward since then. Ukraine is pushing for allies to ensure that any security guarantees are sufficient to deter future Russian attacks.

Kushner and Witkoff’s visit follow days of almost around-the-clock air strikes by Russia with new, jet-powered drones that have upended daily life in war-hardened Kyiv. The attacks on Friday included Zhuliany, one of the capital’s civilian airports closed since the start of the war, and the headquarters of the internal security service in downtown Kyiv. – Bloomberg