Shafaq News- Moscow

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a 72-hour halt to strikes on Kyiv starting at midnight on Saturday, the Kremlin said, amid renewed US effort to revive stalled negotiations aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s TASS news agency that the pause was linked to preparations for US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to visit the Ukrainian capital on Sunday.

Witkoff and Kushner arrived in Moscow on Saturday carrying a US proposal to end the war and are expected to travel to Kyiv the following day. The trip marks their first visit to the Ukrainian capital since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House last year.

Trump said yesterday during a press exchange in the Oval Office at the White House that he had dispatched the two envoys to Moscow and Kyiv to explore whether an agreement could be reached. The US team is taking with it a proposal to end the war, he said, without disclosing whether the plan would require Ukraine to cede territory.

The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, welcomed the planned talks, saying Ukraine wanted discussions with the US delegation to be “as constructive and substantive as possible.”

“We need to look for realistic options on how to bring this war to an end,” he said.

Today, it has been clearly established that U.S. envoys will be in Ukraine and Russia in the coming days. We have the details from the U.S. President’s team. We discussed today that Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will visit Moscow and then Kyiv on Sunday. We are preparing for… pic.twitter.com/MTehI6o2uw

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 4, 2026

US-mediated negotiations between Moscow and Kyiv have been suspended after three rounds earlier this year, held in Abu Dhabi on January 23-24 and February 4-5 and in Geneva on February 17-18. Both sides linked the pause to Washington shifting its attention to Iran after war broke out in late February.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said Washington should consider what he called changing battlefield conditions that favor Moscow. “The US administration must take into account the realities on the ground,” Ryabkov told TASS, arguing that developments were moving against Kyiv.

Read more: Ukraine peace possible, final deal rests with Moscow and Kyiv