US President Donald Trump said Russia and Ukraine are “very close to a deal” that would end their three-year war, after his envoy met with President Vladimir Putin on Friday in talks Moscow said were “constructive and very useful.”
“A good day in talks and meetings with Russia and Ukraine. They are very close to a deal, and the two sides should now meet, at very high levels, to ‘finish it off,’” Trump wrote on Truth Social after landing in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis, reports news agencies.
Kyiv and Moscow have not met directly since the early weeks of Moscow’s February 2022 invasion of its smaller neighbor. Any direct talks would likely require further discussion and add delay to the diplomacy the Trump White House has hoped will yield results in a matter of days.
Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff spent three hours meeting with Putin at the Kremlin on Friday, Russian presidential aide Yuri Ushakov told reporters after the meeting, adding that the talks were “constructive and very useful.”
Meanwhile, Russia says it is prepared to conclude an agreement on the settlement of the conflict with Ukraine, but certain provisions of the deal still require fine-tuning, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday, reports Xinhua from Moscow.
“The statement by the (U.S.) president (Donald Trump) mentions a deal, and we are ready to reach a deal, but there are still some specific points — elements of this deal which need to be fine-tuned,” Lavrov said during an interview with U.S. broadcaster CBS News.
Fragments of the interview were published on Thursday night. The full version will be aired on Sunday, according to media reports.
Earlier, Trump expressed hope that Russia and Ukraine would make a deal this week. On Thursday, Trump said he had set his own deadline for participation in the talks on the peaceful settlement of the Ukrainian conflict, but did not disclose it.