According to The New York Times, as cited by RBC-Ukraine, in early September US President Donald Trump's envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held a meeting with Vladimir Putin at the Kremlin. According to the outlet, the Russian leader "radiated confidence" during the talks: he stated that, in his assessment, Russian forces would seize the entire Ukrainian Donbas within a few months. In addition, Putin claimed that Russia was ready to deliver powerful strikes on Ukraine's energy system, thereby creating the preconditions for a "harsh winter" for Kyiv.
Kushner's sharp rebuttal
The key moment of the meeting, according to the NYT, was Jared Kushner's direct rebuttal. Addressing Putin, he said: "With all due respect, you told us the same thing a year ago. What are the chances that we come back here in a year and you'll say the same thing again? Maybe we won't waste a year?" The outlet notes that this exchange reflects the full complexity of the situation that has developed over more than a year and a half of the Trump administration's attempts to end Russia's war against Ukraine.
Official Moscow reaction
After the negotiations, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov stated that the meetings lasted more than three hours and took place in a "substantive and constructive" manner. According to him, the American side presented a number of considerations on possible paths to ending the war, while representatives of the Trump administration promised to take into account the assessments voiced by Putin during further negotiations with Ukraine. Russian state media, in particular, emphasized that Witkoff and Kushner are "always welcome guests" in Russia.
Kyiv and a possible winter ceasefire
Immediately after Moscow, Witkoff and Kushner visited Kyiv, where they held a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. As later became known, the parties are considering the possibility of declaring a limited ceasefire this winter, in particular a mutual pause in strikes on energy infrastructure. Kushner, however, named the main obstacle in the process: according to him, the US had prepared the bulk of the agreement on ending the war, but Kyiv does not agree to Putin's territorial demands regarding Donbas.
Contradictory data
The differences between the parties' versions concern above all the tone and assessment of the meeting. The Russian side (Ushakov's statement, as well as the framing in state media) characterizes the negotiations as "substantive and constructive" and emphasizes hospitality toward the American envoys, without raising the topic of the sharp exchange of remarks. At the same time, the NYT, citing the course of the conversation, records Kushner's direct and rather harsh rebuttal to the promises to seize Donbas "within a few months." Moreover, Kushner's direct quote relies on a single primary chain — the publication by The New York Times, which was then reprinted by several Ukrainian outlets; no independent verification of the words spoken at the closed Kremlin meeting exists publicly. Both framings — "constructive dialogue" according to Moscow and "sharp rebuttal" according to the NYT — reflect different emphases, rather than mutually exclusive facts about the meeting itself.
