Russian President Vladimir Putin will meet US special envoy Steve Witkoff in Moscow today, after the White House said it was “very optimistic” about reaching a deal to end the Ukraine war.
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has acted as an outside adviser in diplomatic talks, is also expected to attend.
The summit comes after two days of negotiations in Florida between Ukrainian and US officials, including Witkoff and Kushner, aimed at refining a US-backed peace plan which had been viewed as favourable to Russia.
Read also:
Macron warns against escalation with Russia after Biden calls Putin a Butcher
Putin to make first foreign trip since Ukraine invasion
Despite war with Ukraine, Russia seeks investments in Nigeria
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the talks as “constructive”, but said there were “some tough issues that still have to be worked through”.
Witkoff’s meeting with Putin will be during the second half of Tuesday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
Speaking after a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris on Monday, Zelensky said Kyiv’s priorities in peace talks were maintaining Ukraine’s sovereignty and securing strong security guarantees.
Zelensky said the “territorial issue is the most difficult” element of the peace deal, with the Kremlin continuing to push for Ukraine to cede territory in the east, which it still controls, something Kyiv has long maintained it will never do.
The talks in Moscow today come hours after Russian officials claimed to have captured the key strategic town of Pokrovsk in eastern Ukraine, known in Russian as Krasnoarmeysk, and the north-eastern Ukrainian border town of Vovchansk.
Ukrainian officials made no acknowledgement that either city had fallen to Russia, and open-source intelligence projects monitoring the front lines of the war suggested neither Vovchansk nor Pokrovsk had yet been fully captured by the Russian army.
The head of Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, Andriy Kovalenko, said it seemed Russia’s main aim was to ensure all the pressure in the US peace plan was put on Ukraine.
Ahead of his trip to Moscow, Witkoff also held talks with UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, Zelensky, and Ukraine’s new chief negotiator Rustem Umerov, while several key European leaders virtually joined the Zelensky-Macron meeting.
Speaking on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the draft peace deal had “been very much refined”, adding: “I think the administration feels very optimistic.
“But as for the details, I will let the negotiators negotiate. But we do feel quite good, and we’re hopeful that this war can finally come to an end.”
