Kremlin Praises Putin-Kushner Talks as "Step Toward Peace"

(MENAFN) Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov described Saturday's Moscow meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner as a modest but meaningful move toward ending the war in Ukraine.

Addressing reporters at a briefing Monday, Peskov said Russia holds the American negotiators' efforts in high regard. "Certainly, any attempts are more or less effective; it's one small step toward peace," he said. "We truly value the peacemaking efforts of the American negotiators very highly."

The talks marked the latest push by Washington to broker an end to the Russia-Ukraine war, now in its fifth year. After meeting Putin, Witkoff and Kushner traveled to Kyiv, where they held talks Sunday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — their first visit to Ukraine since the conflict began.

Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said the Moscow session ran three hours and ten minutes, touching not only on the war but also on potential large-scale joint Russian-US projects. He characterized the discussion as "substantive, constructive and extremely frank."

The meeting represents the most significant diplomatic movement since the last round of US-mediated peace talks, which took place in January and February of this year across three separate sessions. Those negotiations stalled soon after, with both Moscow and Kyiv pointing to the US war with Iran — which broke out in late February — as the reason for the pause.

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