Vladimir Putin assured White House envoys this Sunday that the Russian army will achieve "the set objectives" in Ukraine, according to the EFE agency following the meeting held the day before at the Kremlin between the Russian leader and the representatives of Donald Trump, Steve Witkoff, and Jared Kushner.
The meeting, which lasted approximately four to five hours in Moscow, was deemed "timely" by the Kremlin. Moscow also reaffirmed its commitment to Washington to "jointly seek a negotiated solution to the current conflict", although neither party disclosed the specific content of the proposal that the envoys presented.
Putin not only implicitly rejected any pressure to halt the offensive but also took the opportunity during the meeting to remind his interlocutors of the "real successes" of the Russian troops on the front.
Independent experts recognize that Russia has accelerated its advance in the Donbas in recent weeks, although they dismiss the possibility of it gaining control over the entire territory before winter arrives.
After the meeting in the Kremlin, Witkoff and Kushner traveled by train to Kiev, where they were welcomed at the train station on Sunday by the Ukrainian negotiating team, led by the chief of staff Kirilo Budánov, the head of foreign intelligence Rustem Umérov, the parliamentary leader of the ruling party Servidor del Pueblo, David Arajamia, and the first deputy head of the Presidential Administration, Serguí Kislitsia, to meet with President Volodimir Zelenski.
Diplomacy did not halt the fighting. Despite the agreement reached on Saturday to suspend attacks on their respective capitals for 72 hours, both sides resumed hostilities outside Moscow and Kiev.
Russia launched 108 drones overnight against Ukrainian territory, with impacts reported in 11 locations. In Zaporizhzhia, a 74-year-old man lost his life and three other people were injured. Ukrainian air defenses managed to neutralize 82 unmanned devices of various models.
Ukraine responded with a massive drone campaign that impacted up to 14 Russian regions, as well as the peninsula of Crimea and the Black and Azov Seas. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have shot down 258 enemy drones, five times more than the previous day.
One of the most significant strikes from the Ukrainian side was the fire caused at a refinery owned by Rosneft in the Ryazan region, less than 200 kilometers from Moscow. The regional governor Pável Málkov confirmed the incident. The facility, considered one of the largest in the country, has the capacity to process almost 17 million tons annually and produces gasoline, liquefied gas, and aviation kerosene.
In the border region of Belgorod, the hardest hit by the conflict, three people died in the last 24 hours during more than a hundred attacks with shells and Ukrainian drones. In Rostov, seven passenger trains had to come to a halt after fragments from a drone struck a locomotive; four people were injured, two of them minors.
This is the second confirmed visit of Witkoff and Kushner to the Kremlin. The first took place in January 2026, as part of the peace initiatives promoted by the Trump administration since the beginning of its second term. Last June, Putin rejected both a broad ceasefire and Zelenski's proposal for direct negotiations and ordered the military advance to continue.
Independent experts warn that, despite Russia's acceleration in the Donbas, Moscow is unlikely to establish total control over the territory "before the harsh winter arrives," which could limit the maneuvering room for both parties in the upcoming weeks of negotiations.
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