US envoys to meet Putin on Ukraine peace plan, Witkoff says

U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff said he and Jared Kushner will travel to Russia on Thursday for talks with President Vladimir Putin on the latest proposals for a peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.

“The Russians have invited us to come and that’s a significant statement from them,” Witkoff said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s Annmarie Hordern at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Wednesday. “Jared and I will leave Thursday night and arrive in Moscow late at night.”

U.S. President Donald Trump remains “focused on that peace deal, it’s a very, very important part of his agenda,” Witkoff said. The envoy said he plans to meet with Ukrainian officials later Wednesday before traveling to Moscow and will then go to the United Arab Emirates for “working groups.”

“The Ukrainians have said that we’re 90% done and and I agree with them. In fact, I think that we’ve made even more significant improvement,” Witkoff said. “I think everybody is embedded in the process and wants to see a peace deal happen.”

U.S. and Ukrainian officials have said they’ve made significant progress on a 20-point plan to end the Russian full-scale invasion that’s lasted almost four years and spiraled into Europe’s biggest conflict since World War II. Kyiv and Moscow remain at an impasse over key issues, though, including Putin’s demands for control of territory that belongs to Ukraine and remains under its control.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that Putin will meet with Witkoff and Kushner on Thursday, the Interfax news service reported.

Putin received a draft of the peace plan earlier this month via his aide Kirill Dmitriev that had been coordinated with Ukraine and European counterparts, according to people familiar with the matter. The documents were passed to Moscow informally for review, allowing Putin to prepare feedback and propose changes ahead of an expected visit by Witkoff and Kushner, who’s Trump’s son-in-law.

The Kremlin viewed the proposal as a significant step forward, the people said, even though it fell short of a finalized agreement. Many issues of interest to Moscow were either missing or framed in ways the Kremlin found unsatisfactory. Still, the inclusion of those topics and the fact that work had begun on them was seen as positive.

Russia believes Kushner, who joined Witkoff at talks with Putin last month, helped structure the negotiation process and establish a framework guiding the discussions, the people said.

Witkoff and Kushner met Dmitriev in Davos for two hours of talks on Tuesday, Russia’s state-run Tass news service reported.

Kremlin officials are placing particular value on what they view as a U.S. readiness to recognize Crimea and other Ukrainian territories as under Russian control. That’s a priority for Putin, prompting him to proceed cautiously and signal openness to limited compromises, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, asking not to be identified discussing internal policy.

Officially, the Kremlin is still waiting for the results of the latest negotiations involving U.S., Ukrainian and Russian officials to be presented to Putin. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters Tuesday that Russia hasn’t “received any recent documents” on talks conducted in recent weeks.

Putin is expected to insist that what Moscow calls the “Anchorage understandings” reached at his August summit with Trump in Alaska remain part of any peace plan. Russia is seeking under that proposal to gain the whole of Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, while fighting would be frozen along the current lines of contact in the southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.

Ukraine rejects demands to withdraw its forces from heavily-fortified areas of Donetsk that Putin’s military has failed to occupy in fighting that stretches back to 2014.

U.S. proposals have suggested turning the unoccupied area into a de-militarized or free economic zone under special administration. It’s unclear whether that land would be de facto recognized as Russian under those plans and what, if any, concessions Moscow is prepared to offer in return.

Kyiv is working out robust security guarantees with its U.S. and European partners to deter any future Russian attacks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was expected to visit Davos for possible talks with Trump, though he said Tuesday he’ll likely scrap plans to attend the forum unless there are agreements to be signed on the security guarantees and a plan to revive the country’s economy with the U.S. Zelenskyy is overseeing efforts to respond to massive Russian airstrikes that have left vast areas of Kyiv without heating, power and water during freezing winter weather.

Russia remains opposed to the stationing of any NATO troops in Ukraine, and wants provisions that would impose sanctions on any party violating the peace deal, including Ukraine, according to the people.

It’s also seeking guarantees that use of the Russian language in Ukraine and the functioning of the Orthodox Church would be regulated according to European standards that prohibit discrimination.

--------

—With assistance from Skylar Woodhouse and Meghashyam Mali.