Retired general says Witkoff, Kushner took Russian vehicle to Putin talks

A retired U.S. Army major general criticized two of President Donald Trump's envoys on Tuesday over reports that a Russian government vehicle carried them to their meeting with President Vladimir Putin, calling the decision ludicrous and a sign the men did not grasp how sophisticated Russian surveillance has become.

So, for them to fall victim to such a ludicrous, unbelievable situation, to accept a Russian vehicle that shows the ignorance and lack of knowledge in general about how sophisticated the Russians are

Manner told CNN anchor Erin Burnett on OutFront that anyone who comes within a certain number of feet of a device concealed in such a vehicle could have the contents of a phone copied without knowing it, from contacts to messages to emails. Reports indicated a Russian government vehicle carried Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner to Saturday's meeting.

Three hours with Putin in Moscow

Witkoff and Kushner met Putin for more than three hours on Saturday in the Kremlin's Red Drawing Room, according to Al Jazeera. Trump had told reporters the envoys were carrying a proposal to end the war and described the two real estate developers as great negotiators. Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov called the talks highly useful and said the men outlined a number of ideas on possible avenues for a settlement.

So, first of all, President Putin, thank you so much for having us. We were sitting outside just now, me, Jared, and Kirill, and then Yuri joined us, and we were all talking about when we retire, we'll have all these incredible stories and incredible memories, and yours will be right at the top of it all.

Ushakov released a summary of the Kremlin's position after the meeting, Slate reported: the Russian army had scored battlefield successes and might still win the war, Ukrainian troops must withdraw from the eastern Donbas, the root causes of the conflict had to be addressed, and peace would open business opportunities between Russia and the United States.

Neither envoy has been confirmed by the Senate, leaving them accountable to no one but Trump, according to Slate. Witkoff holds the title of U.S. special envoy; Kushner holds no government post. Both are real estate developers. Kushner, Trump's son-in-law, served as a senior adviser during the president's first term and played a major role in the 2020 Abraham Accords, which saw several Muslim-majority countries recognize Israel, Al Jazeera noted.

Putin ordered a 72-hour pause in strikes on Kyiv starting at midnight on Sept. 5 to coincide with the visit, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told state media. Ukraine agreed to hold off on strikes against Moscow over the same window. Zelensky wrote that his country was ready to observe a ceasefire in airstrikes against the cities involved in the negotiation process.

The train to Kyiv

From Moscow the envoys flew to Poland and continued to Kyiv by train, Slate reported. Zelensky had promised not to bomb Moscow while the two were in the Kremlin, but Putin offered no reciprocal pledge, so the U.S. security team judged Kyiv's airport unsafe. It was the pair's first trip to the Ukrainian capital despite repeated visits to Moscow.

In Kyiv the envoys met Zelensky on Sunday, and at Ukraine's insistence they took part in a press conference held mainly with Ukrainian reporters. Asked whether he felt ashamed to sit at the same table as Putin, whom the questioner called an international war criminal, Witkoff said he and his team had always been treated respectfully by the Russian leader and his aides, that relationships are critical to solving such conflicts, and that his job, and Kushner's, was to bring the parties together.

Trump has tried before to reach a deal with Putin and come away empty. The two met in Anchorage, Alaska, in August 2025 without an agreement, Time reported. A summit planned for Budapest in October 2025 was scrapped after Russia signaled that its hard-line position had not shifted, with Trump saying at the time that it just didn't feel right to him and that he did not sense a deal was within reach.

Negotiations had been suspended for months, former U.S. Army major Harrison Mann told CNN on Monday. The envoys were last in Russia in January. The war Trump then launched in Iran weakened Ukraine's hand, Mann said, because the United States spent offensive and defensive munitions that Kyiv wanted. That conflict began in February with joint U.S. and Israeli strikes that killed Iran's leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, according to Time.

Russia's demands have barely moved. Moscow wants Ukraine kept out of NATO and insists it hand over four regions, including territory Russian forces do not control, Al Jazeera correspondent Yulia Shapovalova reported from Moscow. Putin proclaimed the annexation of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia in September 2022, a step the United Nations did not recognize. Ukraine has refused to cede territory.

Doubts about the envoys' record

Slate cast the weekend as a display of incompetence, noting that neither man has diplomatic experience, that neither knows Russia, Ukraine or military strategy, and that they travel with no specialists to advise them. Both sets of talks, the outlet said, ended in boilerplate adjectives such as productive, meaningful, positive and businesslike, with no concrete result.

Mann questioned whether the mission was serious at all. Trump does not send Kushner and Witkoff when he genuinely wants something done, he argued, pointing to their earlier work on Iran and Gaza and noting that Vance and Rubio were kept well away from the effort. It was roughly the eighth such trip, Mann said, with no clarity on what deal, if any, had been put on the table.

Kushner said the goal of the talks was a win-win that would address Russia's aspirations, and both men pushed to revive the three-way format among the United States, Russia and Ukraine that had run about six months earlier. Yet Slate argued that Russia's chief aims are to end Ukraine's independence and restore much of the old Russian Empire, terms that leave little room for an equitable settlement.

I think it's worth recognizing that you don't send Kushner and Witkoff when you actually really want to get something done. We can look at their track record: Iran, Gaza.

Russian state television was no gentler on the visitors. Rafael Ordukhanyan, an Americanist appearing on a Russian broadcast, mocked Witkoff's commercial interests, asking whether the envoy resolves global conflicts in his spare time between business deals or strikes business deals in his spare time between resolving global crises.

Strikes resumed hours after the envoys left

Putin resumed bombarding Kyiv shortly after the envoys departed, Slate reported, ending the three-day halt that had held during the visit. Ukraine had refrained from striking Moscow while the pair were inside the Kremlin, but the Russian leader had made no matching promise to spare the Ukrainian capital.

An overnight barrage in the run-up to the trip targeted airports in Kyiv and Boryspil and killed five people at an industrial site elsewhere in Ukraine, Time reported. Russia launched ballistic missiles and 167 attack drones, according to the Ukrainian air force. Zelensky said the airport strikes were a reaction to preparations for a U.S. aircraft to land in Ukraine.

Both Moscow and Kyiv had announced a three-day ceasefire to coincide with the trip, Al Jazeera reported. The U.S. delegation included officials from the National Security Council, the State Department and the Treasury, among them Gene Lang, who oversees sanctions policy on Russia, a sign that penalties on Moscow may have been on the table.

The war in Iran has pulled Trump's attention and global focus away from Ukraine, Al Jazeera reported, and strained ties with European allies, whom Trump has accused of not helping reopen the Strait of Hormuz. NATO members in Europe have since increased military spending and offered security guarantees to Ukraine once a deal is signed. The Trump administration has ruled out a seat for Ukraine at NATO, which Russia has long opposed.

Witkoff and Kushner described the Sunday talks as encouraging, the Associated Press reported, though some experts remained skeptical. A senior Russian official had called the trip an important peacemaking visit. Putin, receiving the two in the Red Drawing Room, told them the situation they were exploring was, of course, not an easy one.

What each side still wants

The territory at the center of the war remains contested. Russia captured the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant from Ukraine, and Putin is demanding that Kyiv cede still more of the eastern Donbas in exchange for peace, Mann said. He called those demands unreasonable, while acknowledging that Ukraine is unlikely to retake ground on the battlefield, leaving it to the two envoys to close a gap he doubts they are qualified to close.

Ukraine's shortage of weapons has narrowed its options, Mann said, leaving the envoys with even less leverage than they carried in February. An arms race has run since the war's first day, he added, with each side's technological edge lasting only months before the other adapts.

Whether Witkoff and Kushner can bridge that gap is the open question. Both pressed for a return to three-way talks and pointed to a friendlier round of trilateral negotiations six months earlier, but the pair left Moscow and Kyiv without a concrete agreement, and Russia's strikes on the Ukrainian capital resumed within days of their departure.