Trump to send top envoy to Russia in push to finalise Ukraine plan
US president sends Steve Witkoff to meet Vladimir Putin to iron out ‘a few’ differences over plan to end Ukraine war.
Ukraine says it supports the “essence” of a United States plan to end its war with Russia, as US President Donald Trump said “progress” is being made on securing a deal and that he would dispatch his special envoy to Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin.
Tuesday saw a flurry of diplomatic activity after US and Ukrainian negotiators met two days earlier in Geneva to discuss Trump’s initial peace plan, which had been seen in Ukraine as a Russian wish list calling on Kyiv to cede territory to Moscow, limit its military and give up on joining NATO.
The plan has since been modified, with the emerging proposal reportedly accomodating concerns of Ukraine and its European allies.
Speaking at a video conference of the so-called coalition of the willing – a group of 30 countries supporting Ukraine – President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv was ready to “move forward” with the as-yet-unpublished “framework”, though he still needed to address “sensitive points”.
Earlier, a Ukrainian official had told the Reuters news agency that Kyiv supported “the framework’s essence”. Building on that sense of momentum, Andriy Yermak, Zelenskyy’s chief of staff, who led negotiations in Geneva, told US news website Axios that the security guarantees Ukraine was seeking looked “very solid”.
Speaking at the White House, Trump conceded that resolving the Ukraine war was “not easy”, but added, “We’re getting close to a deal.”
“I thought that would be an easier [deal], but I think we’re making progress,” he said.
