US President Donald Trump's special envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, arrived in Moscow on Saturday carrying an American proposal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine, which began with Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022. Soon after their arrival, the Kremlin announced that President Vladimir Putin had ordered a three-day suspension of all attacks on Kyiv, starting at midnight local time on Saturday. According to CNN Brasil, which ran a Reuters report, the two are due to meet Putin and then travel on to Kyiv, for the first time, to continue the talks.
Kirill Dmitriev, a special representative of the Russian president, greeted the delegation at Vnukovo airport. The truce ordered by Putin covers only the Ukrainian capital, not the rest of the country. "This is related to the preparation and conduct of the Americans' contacts in Kyiv", Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the state news agency TASS. President Volodymyr Zelensky answered with a reciprocal gesture, saying on X that Ukraine would hold off attacks on Moscow until Monday (7) in the hope that Russia would do the same for Kyiv. Hours earlier he had reported Russian strikes on two airports near the capital, including Boryspil, which used to handle international flights. In his reading, the bombardment was a reaction to preparations for the delegation's possible arrival by plane, since foreign leaders have traveled to Kyiv by train from Poland since the war began.
For Brazil, the direction of these negotiations touches concrete interests. The Brazilian government has called for a negotiated settlement since the war started and put forward a six-point peace roadmap together with China in 2023. Economically, Russia is one of the main suppliers of fertilizer to Brazilian farms, and an end to the war would tend to ease pressure on energy and grain prices in international markets. A Washington-brokered deal would also shift the dynamics of BRICS, the bloc of emerging economies that brings together Brazil and Russia, by changing Moscow's standing vis-a-vis the West.
The contents of the American proposal have not been disclosed. In the Oval Office on Friday (4), Trump called Witkoff, his special envoy, and Kushner, his son-in-law, "great negotiators". "They are bringing a proposal to end the war", he said, adding that "there may be a good chance we can get it done". Trump also framed the conflict as a matter of personality between Zelensky and Putin, and said he had settled "eight wars", most of them, in his view, harder than the one between Russia and Ukraine. Zelensky said on Friday he hoped for talks "as constructive and substantive as possible" and that Ukraine needs to seek "realistic options on how to end this war".
Moscow resists concessions
Signals from Russia, though, point to rigidity. "The US administration must take into account the reality on the ground regarding a settlement for Ukraine, where the situation is not changing in Kyiv's favor", Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told TASS. His words match the gradual Russian advances of recent months toward a cluster of industrial cities in the eastern Donetsk region. On the eve of the visit, a strike hit the headquarters of the SBU, Ukraine's security service, in Kyiv, and Zelensky admitted that a shortage of air defense interceptors leaves the country exposed to ballistic missiles. According to G1, the "drone war" between the two countries has already affected more than 20 nations, with aircraft entering the airspace of NATO, the Western military alliance.
The schedule calls for the meeting with Putin this weekend and the trip to Kyiv on Sunday (6), inside the three-day window without attacks on the Ukrainian capital. Neither side has announced a general pause in military operations, however. The outcome of the talks will determine whether the American proposal moves forward or joins the list of negotiating rounds that have produced no agreement since the invasion of February 2022.