The Trump administration’s renewed Ukraine push is increasingly built around a business-style premise: identify what Moscow and Kyiv can each gain from ending the war, rather than begin with additional pressure on Russia.
US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after more than three hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow a day earlier. Asked whether Washington would increase pressure on Russia if negotiations failed to advance, Kushner instead described the US objective as finding a “win-win” outcome.
“President Trump came from the business world. And in the business world, you think in terms of win-win—how to create an opportunity for both sides to act in their own interests,” Kushner said. He characterized war as a negative-sum outcome in which everyone loses.
Kushner said President Donald Trump was seeking “a framework that could actually lead to a durable peace.” According to the AP News, the envoys discussed in Moscow what Russia, Ukraine, and the wider international community could gain from an agreement. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov separately said potential large-scale, mutually beneficial US-Russia economic projects were discussed in detail.
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That economic framing collides with a territorial dispute that remains unchanged. Zelenskyy said Sunday that the Donbas question remained central to the war and reiterated that the most difficult territorial issues could only be settled by national leaders.
Russia has demanded Ukrainian withdrawal from territory in Donbas that Kyiv still controls, while Ukraine has refused.
Kyiv also used the meeting to seek additional Patriot air-defense support and a winter assistance package covering air defenses and energy infrastructure. Zelenskyy said security guarantees, economic support, and a strong Ukrainian military remained central to any postwar arrangement.
However, Kushner’s remarks drew criticism. He said Putin had objectives as well as broader aspirations for Russia that could potentially be achieved once the conflict was concluded, comments that intensified criticism of the transactional framing.
Former world chess champion and Russian opposition figure Garry Kasparov directly rejected the premise.
“There’s no ‘win-win’ with cancer,” Kasparov wrote in response to video of Kushner’s remarks. He said Putin’s aspirations amounted to destroying Ukraine and sustaining confrontation with Europe.
Ukraine-based journalist Euan MacDonald similarly argued that Putin “aspires to destroy Ukraine as an independent state” and said there was no win-win outcome available under that objective. He called Kushner’s formulation “a really foolish thing” to say.
Zelenskyy did not publicly attack Kushner’s win-win comments. He instead emphasized that any settlement must prevent another Russian invasion and said the Donbas territorial dispute remained an issue concerning the entire war. He also said Ukraine expects fighting could continue through the winter.
Witkoff said the Moscow talks produced unspecified “new ideas” and described himself as “very encouraged.” The envoys are now seeking a return to trilateral US-Ukraine-Russia negotiations, while Zelenskyy also said Ukraine, the US, and European partners would meet again.
The diplomatic language has also already generated criticism. Journalist Illia Ponomarenko reacted with “I wanna throw up” to video of Witkoff warmly telling Putin that memories involving him would rank among the envoy’s most memorable.
For now, Washington has a negotiating framework and proposed formats for another round, but no disclosed agreement on the issue both Moscow and Kyiv still identify as decisive: territory.
