The key facts

  • Yuri Ushakov said Kushner did not travel to St. Petersburg due to health problems
  • Kushner joined Putin's talks with Witkoff via video conference
  • Axios reported that Kushner fell ill with the flu and missed the meetings in Oslo

The reason for Kushner's absence from St. Petersburg

The son-in-law of the US president, Jared Kushner, did not travel to St. Petersburg for a meeting with the Russian leader Vladimir Putin due to health problems. This was announced at a briefing by the adviser to the Russian president, Yuri Ushakov, TASS reports.

Participation via video link

Earlier it became known that Kushner joined the talks between Putin and the US president's special envoy Steve Witkoff via video conference. The press secretary of the Russian president, Dmitry Peskov, explained that “they traditionally communicate this way, there was nothing special, it was a substantive conversation”. A similar situation occurred at the talks between Witkoff and the special envoy of the Russian president, Kirill Dmitriev, who met the American delegation at St. Petersburg's Pulkovo airport.

Illness before St. Petersburg

The Axios portal reported that Kushner was also absent from the talks in Oslo due to illness: according to the outlet, the US president's son-in-law had come down with the flu and decided not to attend the meetings so as not to infect other members of the delegation. Thus, reports of Kushner's illness are consistent with his remote participation in several rounds of contacts at once — both in Oslo and in the format of the talks with Putin. It also previously became known how long Putin's meeting with Witkoff lasted.

Why this matters

Kushner's absence while maintaining his participation via video link shows that, according to Peskov, the remote format is “traditional” for him and does not change the substantive nature of the conversation. For observers of Russian-American contacts, this means that the key talks in St. Petersburg took place without the in-person presence of one of the central figures of the American delegation, while the exact duration of Putin's meeting with Witkoff remains a detail that sources point to, with its significance covered in separate publications.