Trump's Son-in-Law Flies to Putin as Bombs Keep Falling

Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff landed at Vnukovo Airport in Moscow early on November 12, where Kirill Dmitriev, Putin's special representative, was waiting on the tarmac. Dmitriev posted a photo of himself shaking hands with Witkoff, Kushner at his shoulder. "Welcoming Steve and Jared to Moscow," he wrote on X. Kushner, as the base reports note, is the son-in-law of US President Donald Trump. That's the diplomatic qualification on display here: a relative and an envoy, flown in to carve up the future of a continent.

They arrived straight from Abu Dhabi, where two days of trilateral talks on November 10-11 ended without a meaningful breakthrough. Nobody who actually lives under the bombs was at the table in any decisive sense. Ukrainian negotiators blamed "very strict guidelines" from the Kremlin for the narrow room to negotiate. According to RBC-Ukraine's sources, the Russian delegation refused to discuss a ceasefire, territorial issues, energy, and security in the Black Sea. Not one of the things that might stop the killing made it onto the agenda.

The One Thing Agreed

The single concrete result was a prisoner exchange. "One of the positives is we agreed that we're going to have the biggest humanitarian release of prisoners, which we're going to finalize the numbers tomorrow," Kushner said. Politico quoted him calling it "a good first step." Think about that. Prisoners are held by states, and states decide when to release them. The people in cells wait while the numbers get finalised by the same governments that put them there.

Kushner was blunt about the rest. The talks were "quite difficult," he said, and "the reality is that right now there is no trust between the sides." The territorial question, he said, is "the most difficult" to resolve. Land, lines on a map, who gets to rule the people living on it: the oldest argument the state system has.

Who Gets a Seat

Now comes the next scramble. Kushner said the envoys will push in Moscow to turn the trilateral negotiations into a multilateral format involving the EU and NATO. Politico reported the Americans want Putin's "blessing" (Kushner's word) for European representatives to join the next round, something Putin has always rejected. Axios, cited by Politico, reported Russia is being asked for a new proposal on a future security agreement with Europe.

Then there's this line from Kushner: "If Europe could identify one person to speak on their behalf, that would be a bigger achievement than getting the Russians to include them in the negotiation." So the Brussels apparatus, which loves to call itself a union of values, can't pick a spokesperson, while Washington and Moscow haggle over whether it gets a chair. Nobody in the room is asking the people who'll live with the outcome.

Dublin Next

After Moscow, the envoys are expected to fly to Dublin to debrief Volodymyr Zelensky, who is attending an informal meeting of EU leaders on November 13. The politico-diplomatic circuit rolls on: Abu Dhabi, Moscow, Dublin. Zelensky said there could be a "window of opportunity" to end Europe's worst conflict since World War II before 2027. "What's important is that the Americans flew to Putin with specifics. I would very much like them to return to Dublin with specifics," he said, adding that while he was still sceptical "there is hope." This is the fifth year of the conflict.

Meanwhile, On the Ground

The overnight attacks didn't pause for the motorcade. Russia's Defense Ministry said on Telegram it had targeted military and energy facilities in Ukraine, a munitions warehouse in Kyiv and the surrounding region, and a cargo vessel heading for the Odesa region ports. Reuters reported explosions in Kyiv in the early hours, citing a witness. A local official said energy and civilian infrastructure had been damaged in the Rivne region.

Khmelnytskyi Oblast Governor Serhii Tiurin put it plainly: "As a result of the Russian attack, energy infrastructure was damaged, causing emergency power outages in the Shepetivka district." Power cuts, in November. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russia had shot down five drones heading toward the capital, with more reportedly downed over Rostov and Tula.

So the pattern holds. Envoys shake hands at airports, governors count blackouts, and the question of who decides stays with the people who hold the weapons and the passports. The ones sleeping without power in Shepetivka weren't in Abu Dhabi, and they won't be in Moscow either.