Witkoff Claims 'Substantive Progress' on Ukraine Peace Talks, But No Dates and No Ceasefire

Since Zelensky warned on September 7 that Russia may mobilize another 300,000 troops this winter, the diplomatic track has moved fast, and produced a lot of words but no signed deal.

Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, in a statement obtained by NewsNation's Hannah Brandt and posted to X on Monday, September 7, said "substantive progress was made, including movement on scheduling additional trilateral talks." That capped a weekend where Witkoff and Jared Kushner, along with officials from the National Security Council, State Department and Treasury, met separately with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Saturday and Volodymyr Zelensky in Kyiv on Sunday, according to Witkoff's own statement.

The trip happened under a three-day halt in strikes both sides agreed to specifically to enable the talks, Witkoff said. It was the envoys' first visit to Kyiv since Russia's full-scale invasion began in February 2022, according to Anadolu Agency and CNN.

What actually got said

Putin's meeting ran more than three hours behind closed doors. His foreign policy adviser, Yuri Ushakov, called it "constructive, frank and useful" but disclosed no specifics, Fox News reported. Putin himself thanked Trump for continuing to pursue a settlement despite what he called a difficult situation, per the Epoch Times.

In Kyiv, Zelensky said the sides held three rounds of "very substantive" negotiations and thanked the American team for "devoting sufficient attention" to the winter period, in a post on X cited by the Epoch Times. National security advisers from Britain, Germany and France also joined the Kyiv talks, according to Witkoff and Ukrinform.

Zelensky said the core sticking point, the "territorial issue," remains unresolved. Kyiv has rejected Russia's demand that Ukrainian forces withdraw from the parts of Donetsk and Luhansk they still hold, Fox News reported. Zelensky said Ukraine, Europe and the US agreed to meet again "in the near future," but gave no date.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov didn't rule out three-way talks but told reporters Monday "it is too early to say anything about the venue or the exact dates at this stage," according to Breitbart. A White House official told Fox News the two sides discussed "substantive plans for next steps" that are "expected to be announced in the coming weeks."

It is not a ceasefire, a signed framework, or a date on a calendar.

The market isn't buying it

Wheat futures in Chicago jumped as much as 3.1% Tuesday, September 8, the biggest one-day gain since August 28, according to Bloomberg. Traders read the weekend talks as ending "without any sign of progress" on the ground, and are betting Russia stays committed to the war regardless of what diplomats say in press statements. That's a fair read of the incentives here: Putin's negotiators can call a meeting "highly useful" without giving up an inch on Donbas, and so far that's exactly what's happened.

Anyone rooting for this to be the breakthrough moment should also weigh the other side of the ledger. Getting Putin and Zelensky's teams to sit down at all, after diplomatic efforts stalled for months while Washington was consumed by the Iran war, per Fox News and Breitbart, is not nothing. A three-day halt in strikes actually held. European security advisers from three major NATO powers showed up in Kyiv. That's more movement than the last several months produced.

But movement toward scheduling a meeting is not the same as movement toward a peace deal. Negotiators last met for US-mediated talks in Geneva back in February and walked away without an agreement on territory, Breitbart noted. Nothing announced this week changes that math on Donbas.

Separately, UN rights chief Volker Türk said Monday he's alarmed by reports of fully autonomous drones killing people in Ukraine and called for an urgent ban on weapons that can kill without human involvement, according to Breitbart. No source detailed which side's drones, or verified specific incidents.

The next real test isn't another statement from Witkoff. It's whether Moscow and Kyiv actually put a date and city on a trilateral meeting, something Peskov declined to commit to as of Monday, and whether the three-day halt in strikes translates into anything durable once it expires.