The Kremlin said on Monday that a meeting will take place on Tuesday between Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump’s special envoy, Steve Witkoff, who is traveling to Moscow to discuss a potential Ukraine peace deal.
“The president (Putin) will also have several closed-door meetings today in preparation for tomorrow’s Russia-US contacts,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.
Witkoff’s trip to Moscow comes after US and Ukrainian officials discussed the peace proposal on Sunday in Florida. According to a report from Axios, the meeting focused on where the de facto border with Russia would be under the deal, as Ukraine has been resistant to the idea of ceding territory.
The original US proposal that was leaked to the media involved Ukraine ceding what territory it still controls in the eastern Donbas region, a key demand of Russia to end the war. President Trump has acknowledged the fact that Russian forces continue to make gains in the Donbas and will likely eventually take over the entire territory if the conflict continues.
“Eventually, that’s land that, over the next couple of months, might be gotten by Russia anyway,” Trump told reporters last week. “So do you want to fight and lose another 50,000-60,000 people? Or do you want to do something now?”
It’s unclear if an agreement was reached between US and Ukrainian officials on Sunday. Ukrainian officials told Axios that the talks were “difficult” and “intense” but also productive.
The other major sticking point is related to security guarantees for Ukraine, as Ukraine and the US’s European allies are pushing for a NATO troop deployment to a post-war Ukraine, an idea that Russia has repeatedly rejected. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who led the talks with Ukrainian officials on Sunday, reportedly told European officials last week that the US wouldn’t commit to any security guarantees until a peace deal is reached.
