Ukrainian Defense Forces units have been ordered to temporarily observe a ceasefire along the line of contact from 00:00 on 5 September through 23:59 on 8 September, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing sources in several military brigades and a senior security official.

The order comes as US President Donald Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to visit Moscow and Kyiv this weekend for talks aimed at ending Russia’s war against Ukraine.

According to Ukrainska Pravda’s sources, Ukrainian units operating across the front have received instructions to observe the temporary “silence regime” during the four-day period.

An air raid alert was issued in Kyiv at 00:00 on 5 September just as the temporary ceasefire was due to take effect, with Russian drones reported over Kyiv and Kharkiv oblasts.

Pause coincides with US envoys’ visits

Witkoff and Kushner are expected to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow on 5 September before traveling to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 6 September.

Their visit comes after months of stalled negotiations. US-mediated talks between Russia and Ukraine froze in February following the outbreak of war between the US, Israel and Iran, while subsequent contacts between US, Russian and Ukrainian officials have failed to produce a breakthrough.

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Zelenskyy said on 4 September that Ukraine would ensure conditions for the US envoys’ safe travel and called for Russia to reciprocate by refraining from strikes during the period needed for the meetings and related logistics.

The reported Ukrainian order would extend the pause beyond the envoys’ visits, covering 5–8 September.

Russia has continued its intensive drone campaign against Ukrainian cities even as diplomatic contacts have resumed. Kyiv remains skeptical of Moscow’s willingness to accept a genuine ceasefire, with Ukrainian officials warning that Russia may use negotiations to buy time while continuing its military campaign.

US President Donald Trump’s special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are expected to travel to Moscow and Kyiv this weekend for talks aimed at restarting efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine, Axios reported, citing US officials.

The planned trip comes as Washington seeks to revive negotiations that stalled earlier this year and as Russia continues its military campaign against Ukraine. Russia has dramatically stepped up its attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, launching increasingly large waves of drones and missiles against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

Moscow talks Saturday, Kyiv on Sunday

Witkoff and Kushner are expected to travel to Moscow on Friday, 4 September, and meet Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday, 5 September, Axios reported.

They are then scheduled to travel to Kyiv for talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday, 6 September. Zelenskyy confirmed the planned meetings on 4 September.

The Kyiv visit would be the first by Witkoff and Kushner since Trump returned to the White House. The two envoys have traveled to Moscow several times to meet Putin but have not previously visited Kyiv during the current Trump administration.

Ukrainian and US officials have discussed a Kyiv visit for several months, but it has reportedly been postponed multiple times for various reasons.

Zelenskyy confirms visit, calls for reciprocal pause in strikes

Zelenskyy said Ukraine is preparing for the envoys’ visit and will ensure the necessary conditions for their safe arrival.

He said Ukraine would refrain from airstrikes against Russia for the period required for the talks and related logistics, and called on Moscow to provide a reciprocal pause in its air attacks.

“We care specifically about them, not Russia,” Zelenskyy said, adding that Kyiv expects Russia to “mirror” the pause.

Zelenskyy said Ukraine wants the visit and negotiations to be as constructive and substantive as possible, while acknowledging that the outcome will depend on the proposals Witkoff and Kushner bring and Russia’s response to them.

Talks stalled earlier this year

The Trump administration’s mediation between Russia and Ukraine was effectively frozen in February after the outbreak of the US-Israeli war with Iran.

Witkoff and Kushner have continued holding separate discussions with Russian and Ukrainian negotiators in the months since, but the talks have produced little significant progress.

The renewed push comes as Washington has again sought a path toward direct negotiations. CIA Director John Ratcliffe also recently traveled to Moscow and discussed the possibility of restarting diplomatic efforts, including a potential Trump-Putin-Zelenskyy summit.

Kyiv remains skeptical of Moscow’s intentions

The diplomatic effort comes alongside continued Russian attacks and an increasingly escalatory military situation.

Kyiv has faced near-constant large-scale drone attacks in recent weeks, while Ukrainian officials have warned that Russia may be preparing further military escalation. Axios reported that Ukrainian officials remain highly skeptical of Putin’s intentions and believe Russia could be preparing a major escalation in the war.

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Russian drone strikes SBU headquarters in central Kyiv. Zelenskyy says “geography” of Ukraine’s response is set

At the same time, Ukrainian officials have continued to argue that negotiations should not be abandoned.

Kyrylo Budanov, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff and former military intelligence chief, told The New York Times that US-mediated talks could resume in September. He said, however, that conditions for a ceasefire were unlikely to emerge before spring 2027.

Budanov has argued that Ukraine must keep diplomatic channels open even while fighting continues, saying that “the war cannot be eternal.”

The planned meetings will therefore take place against a backdrop of continued battlefield fighting and increased air attacks, with major disagreements still unresolved between Kyiv and Moscow.

Ukrainian drones set fire to two fuel depots around Sochi and hit a Russian air defense position overnight on 4 September, according to monitoring channels. They also reported that drones struck an explosives factory and a petrochemical plant in Bashkortostan the same night, more than a thousand kilometers from Ukraine. Russian officials acknowledged the depot fire and said nothing about the air defense site.

Two depots burned behind their anti-drone screens

Astra's OSINT analysts geolocated the fires to the Rosneft-Kubannefteprodukt depot in Sochi's Adler district and to the Lukoil-Yugneftprodukt depot on the federal territory of Sirius. Sochi mayor Andrei Proshunin confirmed a fire at a depot. The regional operational headquarters claimed there were no casualties. Sochi is a Russian resort city on the eastern Black Sea coast, about 600 km from the frontline in Ukraine.

The Ukrainian OSINT channel Cyberboroshno identified one of the hit sites as the BATO aviation fuel terminal, which fuels aircraft at airports across Krasnodar Krai. Every tank there stood behind purpose-built protective structures, Militarnyi reported, and the Lukoil site holds 12 tanks with a combined volume of about 8,400 m³. The burning depot sits roughly 100 meters from Sochi international airport, Russia's fifth-busiest by passenger traffic in 2024, the Russian outlet Agentstvo found.

Panoramic imagery from this year shows anti-drone netting around the tanks at both depots. Two days before the strikes, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandr Novak claimed Russian refineries were better protected than those in the UAE, and Russian President Vladimir Putin said their protection level was now completely different.

An air defense position caught fire near the Abkhazia border

Astra analyzed eyewitness footage and placed a detonation and fire at a launch position near the settlement of Sirius, by the Psou river on the Abkhazia border, where an S-300 or S-400 system is based. The Ukrainian monitoring channels Exilenova+ and Supernova+ said drones struck the air defenses directly. Russia's Defense Ministry and local authorities reported nothing about it.

Drones had tried the same area in May. A Ukrainian sea drone struck the Russian supply vessel Nefrit at Sochi port the previous day.

Explosives and petrochemicals hit in Bashkortostan

Drones reached Sterlitamak on the morning of 4 September, hitting the Avangard plant and the Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant, footage published by Supernova+ shows. Residents reported a series of explosions, and one man said on video that about a dozen drones had already flown toward the petrochemical works. The frames show Ukrainian FP-1 strike drones. 

 Russia's Defense Ministry claimed it downed 490 drones overnight across several regions, occupied Crimea, and the Black Sea.