The Kyiv Independent: Trump envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner’s first visit to Kyiv may fall through — Witkoff ‘started to get scared’

Filed 2h ago · Via Meduza · The Buffoon Desk

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Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: gdsteam · CC BY 2.0 · via Wikimedia Commons

A planned visit to Kyiv by U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner may fall through, The Kyiv Independent reports, with a source saying Witkoff “started to get scared” after being told by Russian contacts that the trip is dangerous. The pair are expected to visit Moscow and Kyiv September 5–6, traveling by plane, since Kyiv's closed airspace normally requires foreign delegations to arrive by rail.

Sources say Witkoff has previously found train travel “uncomfortable,” cited before as one reason U.S. negotiators have yet to set foot in Kyiv despite multiple trips to Moscow. Russian forces have struck Kyiv daily for over a week, including with jet-powered drones that are harder to intercept.

This is the second time such a visit has reportedly collapsed, after a planned August trip around Ukraine's Independence Day also fell through, with Russian state media citing unspecified “reasons to postpone.” The Kremlin had called Witkoff and Kushner “welcome guests” ahead of that earlier, aborted visit.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

An envoy negotiating peace who won't ride a train and gets nervous about visiting the country actually under attack is a strange kind of mediator. Moscow keeps getting the easy stops while Kyiv keeps getting postponed, and somehow that pattern never seems to raise anyone's eyebrows in Washington. A negotiator who only shows up where it's comfortable isn't really negotiating, he's just visiting.

Source: Read the original at Meduza → Scored: Sneaky · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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