Trump envoys Witkoff and Kushner plan to visit Moscow and Kyiv, in their first trip to Ukraine

US 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 solution to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, a US official told CNN Friday. The visit to the Ukrainian capital would mark the envoys’ first trip to the country that has been at war for years and under a steady barrage of Russian attacks in recent weeks. They have visited Moscow in the past. Citing unnamed sources, Russia’s state-run news agency TASS reported on Friday that the visits would happen on September 5 and 6. Efforts led by Kushner and Witkoff to broker an end to the war have not yielded results. That work had been largely eclipsed by the war in Iran, which the two had also been working to resolve. There had been indications that a visit would happen soon. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said during his nightly address on Thursday that the US team would be in Ukraine “in the coming days.” “We have received confirmation from them: there will be meetings in Moscow and in Kyiv. We expect the meetings to take place in the coming days. This is very important. It is important for the US to remain actively involved,” he said. Zelensky previously said he spoke to Witkoff and Kushner on Monday, and that they were “locking in the dates for their visit to Ukraine.” But while Zelensky hailed the upcoming meeting as an important development, a diplomatic solution that would bring the war to a quick end remains unlikely. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he is not willing to give up any of the maximalist demands he has made of Ukraine. He has called for Kyiv to cede control of large swaths of its territory, give up its ambition to join NATO and dramatically reduce the size of its military – conditions Kyiv has rejected. Moscow has also stepped up its attacks against Ukrainian cities in recent days, terrorising millions of civilians with waves of jet-powered drones that are nearly impossible for Ukraine to intercept. Kyiv has been under near continuous aerial attack for eight days, with strikes hitting multiple buildings inside the city center as well as warehouses and factories – including one that is producing Coca-Cola – in the suburbs. On Friday, a Russian drone struck the central Kyiv headquarters of Ukraine’s Security Service, the SBU. At least 53 people have been killed and 134 injured in Kyiv city and the wider Kyiv region since the start of these non-stop attacks on August 27. Meanwhile, Ukraine has intensified its own long-range attacks against targets deep inside the Russian territory, striking oil storage and refining facilities as well as commercial warehouses. Zelensky warned earlier this week that Russia’s airspace “will effectively be closing” due to the presence of Ukrainian drones. However, he made it clear that if foreign diplomats were to travel to Moscow, Ukraine would make sure the skies were safe.