KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts to find a…
A senior Kremlin official confirmed Wednesday that U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff is set to visit Moscow next week as efforts to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine pick up speed.
But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, insisted that Kremlin officials still haven’t seen a U.S. peace proposal, even though representatives of the United States, Russia and Ukraine held talks earlier this week in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.
“Contact is ongoing, including via telephone, but no one has yet sat down at a roundtable and discussed this point by point. That hasn’t happened,” Ushakov told Russian state media.
Ukrainian officials didn’t confirm whether U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who in recent weeks has played a high-profile role in the peace efforts, would be in Kyiv in the coming days, as U.S. President Donald Trump indicated Tuesday.
Trump’s plan for ending the war became public last week, setting off a spate of diplomatic maneuvering. The initial version appeared heavily slanted toward Russian demands for halting Moscow’s invasion of its neighbor.
After weekend talks in Geneva between U.S. and Ukrainian officials, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the plan could be “workable,” although key points remain unresolved. A Ukrainian official said that Zelenskyy hoped to meet with Trump in the coming days.
Witkoff’s role in the peace efforts came under a renewed spotlight Tuesday when a report indicated that he coached Ushakov, the Putin aide, on how Russia’s leader should pitch Trump on the Ukraine peace plan.
