Witkoff and Kushner Will Meet With Putin for Ukraine Talks

Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, were expected in Moscow as Mr. Witkoff expressed optimism over a plan to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.Steve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, and Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, at Davos on Wednesday. They are expected to meet on Thursday with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Credit...Doug Mills/The New York TimesJan. 22, 2026, 4:51 a.m. ETSteve Witkoff, President Trump’s special envoy, will meet in Moscow on Thursday with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia for negotiations to end the war in Ukraine.“We are at the end now,” Mr. Witkoff told an audience on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Thursday morning, adding that he was “quite optimistic.”Mr. Witkoff said that he would travel to Moscow with Jared Kushner, Mr. Trump’s son-in-law. Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said the meeting with Mr. Putin was scheduled to take place “after 7 or 8 p.m.” local time in Moscow (11 a.m. or noon Eastern).Mr. Witkoff said that he and Mr. Kushner would not spend the night in Moscow. Instead, he said, they will head to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, for meetings with working groups handling specific components of the peace plan, including what he called “military-to-military” aspects and “prosperity,” or postwar economic recovery.“I think we’ve got it down to one issue, and we have discussed iterations of that issue, and that means it’s solvable,” he said, without elaborating, at a breakfast in Davos organized by the foundation of a Ukrainian businessman. “So if both sides want to solve this, we’re going to get it solved.”Kyiv has previously said that it agreed to “90 percent” of the proposed peace deal, but thorny issues of territory and security guarantees remain unresolved.The meeting in Moscow will follow an expected meeting in Davos on Thursday between Mr. Trump and President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine.Mr. Witkoff said that he had held fruitful meetings in Davos with Ukrainian negotiators. Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner also met on Tuesday with Kirill Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, who serves as Mr. Putin’s economic envoy and has been heavily involved in the talks to end the war in Ukraine.Mr. Witkoff and Mr. Kushner last traveled to Moscow in December and met with Mr. Putin for five hours in the Kremlin.Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow.SKIP