American envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner arrived in Moscow on Thursday to meet Vladimir Putin, a day after United States brokered talks between Russia and Ukraine in Abu Dhabi ended without progress on a ceasefire. The two days of talks did produce a large scale prisoner exchange agreement, but no movement on territory.
Why it matters
The Moscow visit is the next step in a shuttle that has already crossed three capitals. After meeting Putin, the envoys are expected to fly to Dublin to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The sequence shows Washington trying to keep both sides talking even as the fighting continues and the diplomatic gaps stay wide.
The trip comes hours after the death of Alexander Darchiev, the Russian ambassador to the United States, who died unexpectedly on November 11 at the age of 66. His death adds an uncertain note to a mission that already carries little public expectation of a breakthrough.
What happens next
On the ground, the war has not paused for the diplomacy. Russian air strikes on the power grid left more than 850,000 consumers without electricity across the Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv regions, according to regional reports. The blackouts are a reminder that talks and strikes are running on parallel tracks.
What happens next will be decided first in Moscow and then in Dublin. If Putin offers anything beyond the prisoner exchange, the envoys will carry it to Zelenskyy. If not, the talks will join a long list of rounds that ended with handshakes and no ceasefire.
The prisoner exchange agreed in Abu Dhabi is the concrete result of the two days of talks, even though the territorial questions produced no movement. Large scale exchanges have been one of the few areas where Russia and Ukraine have reached agreement during the war, and they are often negotiated separately from the wider ceasefire talks. The envoys will carry the exchange forward in Moscow and then brief Zelenskyy in Dublin, keeping the channel open even as the strikes continue. Winter is approaching, and the power grid attacks show that the civilian cost of the war is rising while the diplomacy moves slowly.
