US diplomacy moved the center of negotiations over the war in Ukraine from Moscow to Kyiv on Sunday (Sept 6). Special envoy Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and adviser, met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022. According to CNN Brasil and Folha de S.Paulo, the rounds ended without a concrete decision, though both sides made optimistic statements. On Friday (4), Trump called the two "great negotiators" and said they were carrying "a proposal to end the war".
The talks between the Americans and the Ukrainians concluded on Sunday night after two rounds, followed by a third with representatives of France, the United Kingdom and Germany, CNN Brasil reported. Zelensky called the meeting "very productive", cited economic and security guarantees and the supply of air defense missiles, said he hopes for a trilateral meeting with the Americans and the Russians, and stated that "our proposals are ready". A White House official said both sides "discussed concrete plans for next steps, which will be announced in the coming weeks".
"We want to avoid the loss of life, we want this war to end fairly for all of us, and we want it to end in such a way that Russia's aggression against Ukraine never happens again," Zelensky told reporters after the first round.
For Brazil, the shape of this negotiation carries commercial and diplomatic weight. Russia is among the main fertilizer suppliers to Brazilian agriculture, and any deal that reduces the uncertainty of war would tend to ease prices of inputs, energy and food on international markets. Politically, a peace stitched together directly by Washington and Moscow, with Europe invited to the table only in the final round, squeezes the mediation initiatives of the Global South, such as the negotiated settlement that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has advocated since 2023 alongside China, weeks before Brazil's October presidential election.
What each side wants
The interests at the table diverge. Trump promised during his campaign to end the conflict "in 24 hours", faces declining approval and now works under the calendar of the November midterm elections in the United States. Ukraine is asking for anti-missile systems, economic aid and guarantees that Russian aggression will not happen again. Russia demands recognition of the four provinces it is trying to occupy, a point Kyiv rejects, and a guarantee that Ukraine will not join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Lourival Sant'Anna, an international analyst with CNN, said the NATO question looks negotiable; in his reading, the American pair, both real estate businessmen, work in a transactional style, mixing economic incentives and threats of sanctions against both sides.
Optimism with caveats
In Moscow, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov described Saturday's three hours of talks, followed by dinner, as "useful and constructive", and said the Americans had presented "a whole series of considerations on possible paths to an agreement", pledging to bring to Kyiv "the observations and assessments" they received personally from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kirill Dmitriev, head of the Russian sovereign wealth fund, called the trip an "important peace-promoting visit". Opening the meeting, Putin acknowledged the situation "is not simple" and asked the envoys to convey his gratitude to Trump. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov played down expectations by recalling that Trump himself admitted there were no new ideas, and Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov, speaking to the Russian state news agency TASS, demanded that Washington consider the "realities on the ground", where Russian forces are gradually advancing in the eastern Donetsk region.
Violence remained the backdrop. The 72-hour truce that began from Friday into Saturday suspended only attacks on the two capitals: overnight from Saturday to Sunday, Russia launched 108 Shahed drones and struck 11 locations, with ten civilians killed and 65 wounded in 24 hours, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. Russian missiles hit two airports near Kyiv, including Boryspil, and Zelensky complains of a critical shortage of air defense interceptors. Before the talks, Witkoff, who has met Putin at least eight times since the war began, and Kushner, with at least three meetings, visited St. Sophia Cathedral, a World Heritage site of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) damaged in recent strikes.