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White House Envoy Witkoff To Head To Moscow Next Week For Ukraine Peace Talks, Kremlin Says

By RFE/RL November 26, 2025

White House envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Moscow next week, the Kremlin said, amid accelerating efforts to cement a US-backed peace proposal that many Ukrainians -- and European leaders -- are wary of.

The meeting in Moscow, confirmed by foreign policy adviser Yuri Ushakov on November 26, came hours after US President Donald Trump suggested Witkoff, possibly along with his son-in-law Jared Kushner, would fly to the Russian capital.

Witkoff, a real estate developer with no diplomatic background whom Trump has charged with leading efforts to find an end to Russia's war, is expected to meet Vladimir Putin on the trip, his sixth meeting with the Russian president since January. Ushakov did not say if Kushner would be part of the delegation.

"As for Witkoff, I can say that a preliminary agreement has been reached that he will come to Moscow next week," Ushakov told Russian state TV.

The trip follows days of swirling negotiations between US, Ukrainian, and Russian officials – in Kyiv, Geneva, and Abu Dhabi – that were sparked by the leak of the US plan last week.

The initial 28-point version echo the hard-line positions that Russia has taken since at least the launch of its all-out invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

That alarmed Ukrainian officials – and reportedly angered Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy -- who then held their own bilateral talks with US officials.

As of November 25, there were indications that Ukraine had agreed to some of the proposals; but some of the more major sticking points were still unresolved.

Some of the loudest criticism – from Ukrainian officials and other experts – of the US plan has focused on why the plan appeared to hew to Russia's long-standing maximalist positions.

"Thanks to the work of Ukraine, US and us in Geneva we now have a starting point," EUropean Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on November 26.

"We know that Russia's mindset has not changes since the days of Yalta. We need to be clear there cannot be unilateral carving up a sovereign European nation."

The man leading the Kremlin's efforts, Harvard-trained, English-speaking Kirill Dmitriev, traveled to Miami in October for meetings, reportedly with Witkoff and Kushner.

A leaked telephone conversation, published by Bloomberg News on November 25,heightened those concerns.

According to a Bloomberg transcript, Witkoff told Ushakov in an October 14 phone call, they should work together on a cease-fire plan and that Putin should raise it with Trump.

In comments to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump appeared to partially confirm the call, saying he hadn't reviewed the reports but that he heard it was a "standard negotiation."

"He's got to sell this to Ukraine. He's going to sell Ukraine to Russia. That's what a dealmaker does," Trump said.

"You got to say, look, they want this, you got to convince them of this. I would imagine he's saying the same thing to Ukraine, because each party has to give and take."

Asked why the call was leaked, Ushakov said: "To hinder [the talks], probably. It is unlikely this was done to improve relations."

Russian officials have said they have yet to receive an official copy of the US plan. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, said earlier that Russia was waiting for the United States to submit an "interim" version of the modified plan.

"Then we will see," Lavrov said in Moscow.

Lavrov also signaled Russian wariness with any plan that had been updated to reflect Ukrainian position, and he pointed to the August summit between Trump and Putin in Anchorage, Alaska, when Trump appeared to endorse Russia's assertions.

If the updated plan "erased the spirit and letter of Anchorage," Lavrov said, then "it will be a fundamentally different situation.

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-ukraine-peace- talks-witkoff-moscow-trip-ushakov/33605936.html

Copyright (c) 2025. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.