It's still slash-and-snap time in Eastern Europe, but for a while, there is a ceasefire in place in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War to allow for new talks, although there are still reports of drone attacks by both Russia and Ukraine.
And, again, the United States is trying to broker a peace. On Sunday, two of President Trump's senior envoys/advisers, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, met with Russian President Vladimir Putin to talk about a possible peace deal with Ukraine. We don't know all of what was discussed yet, but the Trump administration envoys are next expected to meet with Ukraine's President Zelensky.
Could some kind of breakthrough be in the making?
U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Kyiv on Sunday for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a day after meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow as part of efforts to end the war between the two countries.
Zelenskyy said Sunday morning that he had met with his negotiating team ahead of the Americans' arrival and that Kyiv was prepared for the discussions.
"Ukraine has always been and will remain constructive," Zelenskyy wrote on X. "We are interested in bringing the end of the war closer. Peace is needed. Security guarantees are needed. A dignified character of the postwar peace is needed."
One sticking point for Moscow has always been that Ukraine would not be taken into NATO, which may well be what President Zelensky means by "security guarantees."
Witkoff and Kushner met with Putin for more than three hours behind closed doors Saturday, though the talks ended without any announced breakthroughs.
Putin’s foreign policy advisor Yuri Ushakov described the meeting as "constructive, frank and useful," but did not disclose specific outcomes.
A White House official said following the meeting that the two sides discussed "substantive plans for next steps," which are expected to be announced in the coming weeks. The official added that the U.S. delegation looked forward to "equally productive meetings" in Ukraine.
Everyone involved is making hopeful noises, but we have heard these kinds of hopeful noises before, most notably in a face-to-face between Russian President Putin and American President Trump here in Alaska, a meeting for which much was hoped but ended up being not so much of a much.
The sticking point is liable to remain as it has been: the Donbas region, which Russia now holds in part, and which Putin has always insisted Russia should hold as part of a peace deal. That's unlikely to ring many bells in Kyiv; Zelensky has been similarly insistent on a complete withdrawal of Russian forces from Ukraine. That won't include Crimea, no matter how Kyiv feels about that historic territory; Russia isn't about to give up that lovely warm-water Black Sea port at Sevastopol, nor are they likely to stop refurbishing their old Soviet-era submarine base there.
Significant differences between Moscow and Kyiv remain, including over territory. Kyiv has rejected Russia’s demand that Ukraine withdraw from portions of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions that remain under Ukrainian control.
That's a major problem that the negotiators on all sides are going to have to find a way to resolve.
While we do not yet know much about what Mr. Witkoff, Mr. Kushner, and the Russians discussed, the only likely outcome acceptable to both sides in this will be, as we have said all along, a return to the status quo ante 2022. Ukraine's not getting Crimea back, and Putin may have to give up the Donbas.
Here's the initial televised Moscow meeting.
The meetings in Kyiv will be going on as America moves into the long Labor Day weekend. We'll be watching and will bring you any updates as this develops.
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