Special Envoy Steve Witkoff said he is «very optimistic» the U.S will be able to broker a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine.
President Donald Trump’s Special Envoy, Steve Witkoff, said he is “very optimistic” that the United States will be able to broker a full ceasefire and ultimately a peace deal to end the war between Russia and Ukraine.
In an interview with American journalist Tucker Carlson, Steve Witkoff, a real estate investor who President Trump tapped to serve as the U.S. Special Envoy to the Middle East and the de facto envoy to Moscow, indicated that he believes that there is a deal to be had to end the over three-year war in Eastern Europe that “everybody can live with”.
“I believe that we have made more progress in this Russian-Ukraine conflict in the last eight weeks than anyone thought we would ever make,” Witkoff said.
Speaking ahead of upcoming talks with both the Russians and the Ukrainians in Riyadh, the U.S. diplomat said that in addition to the partial ceasefire on attacks against energy infrastructure, he expects an agreement on “reinstituting the Black Sea moratorium on maritime” strikes within the “next week or so”.
“That’s big stuff, really big stuff. What’s the ultimate goal? The ultimate goal is a 30-day ceasefire, during which time we discuss a permanent ceasefire. We’re not far away from that,” Witkoff predicted.
“There’s all kinds of good, positive talk coming out of Russia about their willingness to consider all of these different things. And Zelensky had a wonderful conversation with the president… and I think that indicates that they’ve got some degree of flexibility in the way that they’ve been thinking about finishing up this conflict,” he continued.
