President Donald Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are planning to visit Moscow and Kyiv in the coming days to press for a diplomatic off-ramp in the Russia–Ukraine war, a U.S. official told CNN on Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. The Kyiv stop would be the envoys’ first trip to Ukraine; they have visited Moscow before.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the planned meetings “in the coming days,” saying the goal is “negotiations with the American side that are as constructive and substantive as possible” and that Kyiv needs “realistic options on how to bring this war to an end.” He also urged a reciprocal pause in airstrikes while talks proceed. Russia’s state news agency TASS, citing unnamed sources, reported the envoys expect to arrive in Moscow and then Kyiv on Sept. 5–6 — timing the White House has not independently confirmed on the record.

The diplomacy lands amid an eight-day aerial campaign against Kyiv. CNN counted at least 53 killed and 134 injured in Kyiv city and the wider region since Aug. 27. On Friday a Russian drone struck the central headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service (SBU), a development we covered separately. Moscow still demands large territorial concessions, a bar on NATO membership, and deep cuts to Ukraine’s military — terms Kyiv rejects. Prior Witkoff–Kushner mediation has not produced a durable ceasefire, and much of their bandwidth this year has gone to the Iran conflict.

Concentrated war powers and back-channel diplomacy are the story’s structural stakes: two presidential envoys shuttling between Kremlin and Kyiv while cities absorb nightly drone waves, with little public transparency on what, if anything, either capital is prepared to trade. Zelenskyy has said Ukraine would keep airspace safe for foreign diplomats traveling to Moscow; whether Russia matches any temporary restraint remains the immediate test.

Sources