Putin meeting gives U.S. Ukraine diplomacy a narrow opening as air war widens

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s more than three-hour Kremlin meeting with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner on September 5 produced no announced breakthrough. That leaves Washington’s renewed Ukraine diplomacy facing its first immediate test in Kyiv on September 6: whether talks can gain traction while Russia and Ukraine continue to expand the broader air war.¹

The Moscow talks were aimed at reviving stalled efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine. Putin’s foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, described the closed-door meeting as constructive and useful but offered no specific outcome. Witkoff and Kushner, envoys for U.S. President Donald Trump, were expected to travel next to Kyiv in what Ukrainian officials said would be their first visit to the Ukrainian capital in this phase of the peace process.¹

The diplomatic choreography came with a limited security measure. Russia and Ukraine signaled they would pause strikes on each other’s capitals during the envoys’ visits. Moscow said Putin ordered no strikes on Kyiv for three days, while President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukraine was prepared to refrain from strikes on Moscow through Monday.¹ Axios reported that the envoys helped secure a short pause in airstrikes to allow the trip to proceed, underscoring how battlefield risk is now built into the logistics of diplomacy itself.²

But the pause was narrow. It applied to the capitals, not the full front, other cities or the wider drone-and-missile campaign that has become central to both countries’ strategies. That distinction is the core measure of the moment: Washington may have reopened a channel, but neither Moscow nor Kyiv appears ready to de-escalate the broader air war.

A diplomatic opening, not a breakthrough

The Kremlin meeting matters because it reestablished high-level U.S.-Russia contact after months in which peace efforts had lost momentum. AP reported that Washington’s push had stalled as U.S. attention shifted elsewhere, and that Witkoff and Kushner had last visited Moscow in January.¹ Deutsche Welle reported that Trump said the envoys carried a new proposal, though he did not provide details on its terms or say whether it addressed the central territorial and security disputes separating Moscow and Kyiv.⁴

That lack of detail is significant. Russia has repeatedly demanded Ukrainian concessions that Kyiv rejects, including recognition of Moscow’s claims over Ukrainian territory and limits on Ukraine’s future security alignment. The Guardian reported that large gaps remain between the two sides, including Russia’s insistence that Ukraine give up four regions claimed by Moscow and not join NATO — positions Ukraine considers unacceptable.⁵

In that context, the absence of a breakthrough after the Kremlin meeting was not surprising. The immediate deliverable was not a settlement, but the continuation of a process: Moscow first, Kyiv next, with the United States testing whether either side is willing to move beyond maximal positions.

The air war is setting the terms

The talks are unfolding as the war’s aerial dimension intensifies. AP reported that Russia has stepped up attacks on Kyiv and other cities, exploiting Ukraine’s air-defense shortages. Ukraine, meanwhile, has used long-range strikes against Russian military facilities, oil refineries and logistics-linked targets to pressure the Kremlin’s war effort and economy.¹ The Guardian similarly described a battlefield stalemate along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front line, paired with increasingly distant aerial strikes by both sides.⁵

That pattern complicates diplomacy because air campaigns are doing more than shaping battlefield conditions. They are also sending political signals. Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities demonstrate Moscow’s ability to impose costs despite negotiations. Ukrainian strikes inside Russia seek to show that the Kremlin cannot insulate its economy or population from the war it launched.

Zelenskyy directly linked Russia’s latest attacks to the U.S. diplomatic visit. The Kyiv Independent reported that he accused Russia of deliberately targeting airports in Kyiv and Boryspil overnight before the envoys’ planned arrival, saying the strikes appeared connected to discussions about whether the U.S. delegation might fly into Ukraine.⁷ The same report said the airport strikes were part of a broader overnight attack involving ballistic missiles and 167 drones across Ukraine, killing at least seven people and injuring at least 51.⁷

That allegation, if accurate, illustrates the fragility of the diplomatic space. Even before negotiators could move from Moscow to Kyiv, Ukraine was accusing Russia of shaping the visit’s security environment by force.

A capitals-only pause leaves most of the war untouched

The reported pause on strikes against Kyiv and Moscow was meaningful but limited. It suggested both sides recognized the need to avoid a direct disruption of U.S. shuttle diplomacy. But it did not amount to a ceasefire, and it did not halt attacks elsewhere.

The Kyiv Independent reported that Russia attacked Kyiv and the surrounding region during the reported ceasefire window, damaging residential property and injuring at least two people in Boryspil, while strikes also continued against other Ukrainian regions.⁸ AP reported additional Russian attacks that killed civilians in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kyiv regions, including workers at an industrial facility and members of a family in a residential strike.¹

This is the immediate contradiction facing Washington’s effort: the envoys may be able to create temporary corridors for talks, but those corridors do not yet alter the strategic logic driving the war. Russia continues to use mass strikes to pressure Ukraine’s cities and air defenses. Ukraine continues to use long-range drones and missiles to impose costs inside Russia.

What to watch in Kyiv

The Kyiv stop on September 6 is more than a courtesy visit. It is the point at which the U.S. envoys must test any Russian signals from Moscow against Ukraine’s conditions for ending the war. Kyiv will be looking for evidence that Washington is not simply relaying Russian demands, while Moscow will watch whether the United States can extract Ukrainian flexibility.

The first indicator will be whether the capitals-only pause holds through the visit. The second will be whether either side expands that limited pause into broader aerial restraint. The third will be whether the U.S. proposal, still largely undefined publicly, addresses the core issues that have repeatedly stalled negotiations: territory, security guarantees, sanctions, accountability and Ukraine’s future defense posture.

For now, renewed U.S. diplomacy has achieved movement, but not momentum. It has put American intermediaries back in both capitals, but it has not stopped the wider campaign of drones and missiles. The battlefield reality is blunt: talks have resumed, yet the air war has not.