WASHINGTON / MOSCOW, Nov 26: US President Donald Trump said he has dispatched his special envoy, Steve Witkoff, to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin in an effort to finalize a proposed peace deal aimed at resolving the Ukraine crisis.
“In the hopes of finalizing this Peace Plan, I have directed my Special Envoy Steve Witkoff to meet with President Putin in Moscow and, at the same time, Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll will be meeting with the Ukrainians,” Trump wrote on Tuesday in a post on Truth Social.
Trump said the US-drafted 28-point peace plan, unveiled last week, has been “fine-tuned with additional input from both sides,” leaving only “a few remaining points of disagreement.” He added that his team has made “tremendous progress” over the past week and that he hopes to meet Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky once the deal is close to completion.
According to Xinhua, the US, Ukraine and several European nations met in Geneva on Sunday to discuss the proposal. Following that meeting, Ukrainian delegates held talks with national security advisers from Britain, France and Germany, before moving into bilateral discussions with US representatives.
The US Army said that on Monday and Tuesday, Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll met Russian officials in Abu Dhabi to continue negotiations on the draft plan.
Sunday’s Geneva talks saw participation from Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Special Envoy Steve Witkoff, and Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll on the US side, while the Ukrainian delegation was led by presidential chief of staff Andriy Yermak.
A joint statement issued by the White House on Sunday night said the Geneva discussions made “meaningful progress toward aligning positions” between US and Ukrainian negotiators.