Russian President Vladimir Putin has offered to halt his invasion of Ukraine along the current front line as part of efforts to reach a peace deal with US President Donald Trump, the FT reported on Tuesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Putin told Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy, during a meeting in St Petersburg earlier this month that Moscow could drop its demands to annex four partially occupied Ukrainian regions that remain under Kiev’s control, the report said, citing three people familiar with the talks.
White House spokeswoman Caroline Levitt told reporters on Tuesday that US special envoy Witkoff would travel to Russia later this week for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin about the war in Ukraine.
Levitt said “we hope we are moving in the right direction” on Ukraine, noting that US President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with both Russia and Ukraine in his efforts to stop the fighting.
As a reminder, Trump promised during his election campaign to end Russian aggression in a short period of time. At the time, he said that he would succeed in doing so in just a few hours. He also claimed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was among the culprits for not stopping the war.
