Trump envoy names key obstacle to Ukraine peace

Moscow and Kiev remain divided over territory despite progress on security and ceasefire mechanisms, Jared Kushner has said The territorial dispute between Moscow and Kiev remains the main obstacle to ending the Ukraine conflict, Jared Kushner, US special envoy and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, has said. His comments came after he and fellow envoy Steve Witkoff traveled to Moscow and Kiev for high-level talks on ending hostilities. Speaking via video link at the annual YES 2026 conference in Kiev on Friday, Kushner said that Moscow “wants to discuss a way to resolve” the conflict, but “the hardest issue is still territory,” partly because the question is to a degree dictated by a battlefield situation that remains highly dynamic. “Seeing the advancement in the technology and the way that the battlefield has happened is, I think, beyond the expectation of both sides.

And I think one thing I’ve learned in politics is [that] any expert you talk to will give you a ton of ideas, but nobody has any idea what’s actually going to happen,” Kushner said. View from Russia: Experts on why Kushner and Witkoff came to Moscow Despite this hurdle, Kushner still sounded optimistic about the overall progress. During earlier trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi, he said, US, Russian and Ukrainian representatives “completed a deconfliction mechanism and a monitoring mechanism,” with the US military involved in the discussions. Once the territorial question is resolved, Kushner said, that framework could provide “a real mechanism both to enforce it, protect it and oversee it. ” He stressed that much of the rest of a potential deal could fall into place if Moscow and Kiev overcome the territorial dispute. “I think the sides feel good about” the arrangement, he added. “And that’s actually…