LONDON — The White House said it is “very optimistic” as special envoy Steve Witkoff headed to Moscow Tuesday for a planned meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, part of U.S. efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The high-stakes meeting follows intensive discussions between senior U.S. and Ukrainian officials aimed at revising a peace-plan proposal the Trump administration offered to Ukraine last month. Witkoff and other U.S. officials — including Jared Kushner and Secretary of State Marco Rubio — met Sunday in Florida with a Ukrainian delegation to explore a deal both Kyiv and Moscow might accept.
“I think the administration feels very optimistic,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday after the Florida talks. “They had very good talks with the Ukrainians in Florida. And now, of course, Special Envoy Witkoff is on his way to Russia.”
The Kremlin confirmed on Monday that Witkoff would meet Putin on Tuesday. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the president would hold several closed-door sessions in preparation for the Russian-American contacts.
Despite the scheduled meeting, expectations that Putin will accept a compromise remain low. The Russian leader has signaled reluctance to yield, recently restating demands that Ukraine withdraw from territory he claims and calling negotiations with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy “pointless.” On Monday, Putin claimed — without evidence, according to Western reports — that Russian forces had taken control of two Ukrainian cities in the eastern theater, an assertion that may be intended to underscore Russia’s perceived battlefield advantage.
Zelenskyy, not directly involved in the Florida talks, met Monday with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and then traveled to Dublin, where he is expected to meet Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin. After meeting Macron, Zelenskyy said the engagement was “substantive and important — above all, focused on the steps that bring a just peace closer,” and urged partners to take actions that would truly change the course of the war and help achieve a just, real end.
Members of the Ukrainian delegation in Florida provided updates on the talks, with Zelenskyy acknowledging there remain several “tough issues” to resolve. Reports indicated that Ukraine’s potential ceding of some territory to Russia was among the matters under discussion.
Ukrainian negotiator Rustem Umerov said Monday that after “two very productive days in the United States, we held many hours of meetings and negotiations” and that significant progress had been made, though some issues still require further refinement.
Leavitt said the U.S. had “put points on paper” and that those points had been refined, but she declined to elaborate on negotiation details, saying she would “let the negotiators negotiate.” She added that the administration felt “quite good” and was hopeful the work could lead to an end to the conflict.
ABC News’ Emily Chang and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.