Zelensky: ‘Raids on airports intended for US mediators’. Witkoff and Kushner in Moscow
The Ukrainian president’s warning at the start of the two-day visit that will see Witkoff and Kushner in the Russian capital and in Kyiv
“Overnight, there were also Russian demonstrations of force against our airports in Kyiv and Boryspil. These were deliberate attacks, the first of their kind in quite some time.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported this on X. “It is clear that these Russian attacks,” the Ukrainian leader added, “are a reaction to the discussions and preparations for the possibility that the US side might use an aircraft to travel to Ukraine and land at Kyiv or Boryspil airport,” the Ukrainian leader added.
“A private jet, which may be carrying the US President’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, has landed in Moscow,” reports the Russian news agency Interfax, citing aviation sources. Kushner, son-in-law of US President Donald Trump, and Witkoff, special envoy for peace missions, are the negotiators chosen by Trump. Their trip to Moscow had been announced earlier today by Trump himself: “Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are two great negotiators. They have done an excellent job. They will bring a proposal to end the war,” he had stated.
Meanwhile, the Russian troops have captured another settlement in eastern Ukraine in the last 24 hours, according to a report from the Ministry of Defence in Moscow. This is the village of Kurtovka, in the Donetsk region of the Donbas. Ukraine has put forward a proposal for a truce to Moscow – indeed, to Putin himself – which was intended to apply both to attacks on Ukrainian cities and to fighting on the front line, but has received no response: this was stated by the head of the Ukrainian Presidential Office, Zelensky’s right-hand man, the influential Kyrylo Budanov.
Five civilians, including a 14-year-old boy, have been killed and a further five injured in the last 24 hours as a result of Ukrainian shelling of the Russian-controlled Luhansk region. This was reported by the head of the pro-Russian administration, Leonid Pasechnik. A 23-year-old woman and her mother were killed when a drone struck a car in the village of Bryanka, Pasechnik said, as quoted by the Interfax news agency. Another car was attacked in the regional capital, Luhansk, leaving one person dead and another injured. A tractor driver was killed in an explosion in the town of Lysychansk. Meanwhile, a 14-year-old boy was killed and a 13-year-old boy injured in an explosion in the Krasnodon municipal district.
