Zelensky Details Winter De-Escalation Talks With US as He Warns Russia Set to Mobilize 300,000 More Troops

Since Witkoff and Kushner's Sunday, September 6 trip to Kyiv, the first of the Trump administration's second term, wrapped without a ceasefire announcement, the diplomatic track has shifted from talk of an immediate deal to something narrower: surviving the winter without another energy war.

President Volodymyr Zelensky told Axios on Monday that the United States is exploring whether Russia and Ukraine can each take steps to de-escalate specifically around winter, even as broader peace talks continue in parallel. According to Censor.NET's account of that interview, Zelensky described two separate tracks: resuming the stalled peace process, and reaching some understanding that keeps this winter from looking like the last several, when Russian strikes gutted Ukraine's power grid.

"There are ideas concerning energy facilities and grain supplies, electricity facilities and oil and gas exports. Our interests are different, Russia's and ours," Zelensky said, per Censor.NET. He called the interpretation that the US is trying to pursue talks and a winter accommodation simultaneously "very close to the reality of these conversations."

Compared to where things stood earlier this year, this represents a more modest goal. A White House official told AFP the Moscow leg of the trip covered "substantive plans," but nobody, not Witkoff, not Kushner, not Zelensky, announced a ceasefire. Witkoff called the talks "encouraging" and said both sides need to compromise. Kushner said the trip surfaced "new ways to advance forward." None of that is a deal.

Per Crypto Briefing's reporting, Kyiv's request amounts to a defensive winter package: air defense reinforcements, help repairing and hardening the energy grid, and significant volumes of US liquefied natural gas. Zelensky has framed peace as Plan A and winter survival support as Plan B, according to that reporting.

RBC Ukraine reported that Kushner proposed reviving a trilateral format the US, Russia, and Ukraine tried roughly six months ago, and that Trump specifically tasked the envoys with preparing what Kushner called a "peace package." Witkoff told the Kyiv meeting he has now met Putin and his team eight times, with three trips to Russia alongside Kushner.

On the Russian side, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow does not rule out resuming three-way talks, a signal that the door Kushner is trying to reopen isn't shut on Moscow's end either, though Peskov did not commit to a date.

In separate remarks reported by CNN, Zelensky said he expects Russia to mobilize at least 300,000 additional troops later this year, timed after Russian parliamentary elections next month. He argued the mobilization would avoid major cities to limit domestic backlash, a pattern he says differs from Russia's disruptive 2022 draft.

Zelensky claimed Russia has lost 267,000 personnel since the start of the year, including roughly 155,000 killed. CNN noted that figure "is impossible to confirm" but said it's in line with Western officials' estimates, an important caveat given neither side publishes verified casualty data.

Zelensky predicted Russia will end the year holding roughly the same territory it held at the start, despite those losses, and said any newly mobilized troops thrown at Donetsk "will lose all 300,000... there; we'll wipe them out." That's Zelensky's own assessment, not an independently verified battlefield projection.

He also flagged a Patriot missile shortfall: 675 supplied in 2023 versus a forecast 264 this year, which he tied directly to US supply decisions. CNN noted Trump floated letting Ukraine build Patriots under license last month, then backed off the idea.

Ukraine and the US have tried scaled-down winter arrangements before and watched them collapse. A one-week strike pause floated in January in Abu Dhabi produced what Crypto Briefing called "mixed" results. Zelensky himself told Axios he remains skeptical that Russia's battlefield conduct, including the intensified strikes referenced by CNN, matches its rhetoric about being "ready to negotiate." US officials, per Censor.NET, acknowledge outright they don't know if both sides' interests can be reconciled before winter arrives.

Zelensky said Ukraine, the US, France, and Germany plan to hold follow-up talks on new ideas for ending the war in the coming days, though no date has been made public.