US President Donald Trump said he plans to speak to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday to discuss ending the war in Ukraine.
“I'll be speaking to President Putin on Tuesday. A lot of work's been done over the weekend,” Mr Trump told reporters on Air Force One during a late flight back to the Washington area from Florida. “We want to see if we can bring that war to an end. Maybe we can, maybe we can't, but I think we have a very good chance.”
Mr Witkoff, who met the Russian leader in a late-night encounter in Moscow on Thursday, told CNN that US-led efforts to achieve a lasting truce to the conflict with Ukraine were progressing. “The two sides are today a lot closer,” he said.
Mr Witkoff's portfolio has expanded in recent weeks as he has shown himself to be one of the President’s closest allies and a key problem solver for the administration. His meeting with Mr Putin failed to yield a ceasefire in Ukraine but he still described the exchange as “positive”. He added: “I think the meeting was somewhere between three and four hours. It was positive. It was a solution-based discussion.”
The talks came after US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz met Ukrainian officials in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. The day-long meeting culminated in Kyiv accepting a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire.
It was a significant development and one that appeared to have mended the fractured relations between the US and Ukraine after a disastrous meeting in the Oval Office on February 28, when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy got into a heated argument with Mr Trump and Vice President JD Vance.
Mr Trump ultimately asked Mr Zelenskyy to leave the White House grounds in a calamitous and public rupture.
Mr Trump has made ending the Russia-Ukraine conflict an early priority of his administration. On Friday, he said he hoped Russia would accept a 30-day ceasefire and if not “it'll be a very disappointing moment for the world”.
Mr Putin has said a temporary ceasefire would give Ukrainian soldiers a badly needed reprieve while the Kremlin believes it has Kyiv on the ropes.
In only two months, Mr Trump has upended US foreign policy. He has made his “America first” agenda his guiding mission, challenging allies while looking to improve relations with Russia.
Mr Witkoff said he was “really hopeful” that progress would be made in the next few weeks.
