By Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said on Tuesday that he will meet with representatives from Ukraine in New York this week while saying that Washington continues to talk with Russia as the United States seeks an end to Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
“I’m meeting with the Ukrainians this week. So I will be meeting with them this week in New York, and that’s a big signal. We talk to the Russians every day,” Witkoff said on Fox News’ “Special Report with Bret Baier” show.
Witkoff said he thought Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to bring an end to the war.
“I think he (Putin) has made a good faith effort to engage. He certainly did at the Alaska summit. But it’s a very complicated conflict,” Witkoff said.
President Donald Trump held a summit with Putin in Alaska on August 15 and a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, as well as NATO and European leaders, at the White House on August 18.
Following those meeting, Trump said Zelenskiy and Putin would hold a bilateral meeting before a trilateral meeting that would also include Trump. Zelenskiy has said Russia was doing everything it could to prevent a meeting between him and Putin, while Russia says the agenda for such a meeting was not ready.
“I think that we may end up seeing a bilateral meeting,” Witkoff said. “My own opinion is that the president is going to be needed at the table to finish a deal.”
Trump had vowed a swift end to Russia’s war in Ukraine that began in 2022 when he took office in January, but has yet to achieve that objective.
Trump has told Zelenskiy that Washington would help guarantee Ukraine’s security in any deal. Trump also renewed a threat on Friday to impose sanctions on Russia if there is no progress toward a peaceful settlement in Ukraine in two weeks.
Russia occupies around a fifth of Ukraine, and Trump has said “land-swapping” and changes to territory will be crucial for any settlement.
Ukraine opposes the idea of legally recognizing any Ukrainian territory as Russian. But it has tacitly acknowledged it will almost certainly have to accept some de facto territorial losses.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh and Jasper Ward; Editing by Leslie Adler)
