[Source: Reuters]

U.S. President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin for three hours in Moscow on Friday to discuss the U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine, and Trump said the two sides were “very close to a deal,” despite apparent differences in their positions.

Trump said in a social media post after Witkoff’s meeting concluded that it was a good day of talks and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close a deal.

“Most of the major points are agreed to,” Trump said in the post after landing in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday. “Stop the bloodshed, NOW.”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was also expected to attend the funeral, although he said on Friday he was not certain he could make it.

Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Kremlin foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov, who took part in Friday’s meeting and briefed reporters on the details, earlier described it as constructive and very useful.

“This conversation allowed Russia and the United States to further bring their positions closer together, not only on Ukraine but also on a number of other international issues,” he told reporters.

“As for the Ukrainian crisis itself, the discussion focused in particular on the possibility of resuming direct negotiations between representatives of the Russian Federation and Ukraine.”

There was no immediate comment from Witkoff.

A real estate billionaire, Witkoff has emerged as Washington’s key interlocutor with Putin as Trump pushes for a deal to end the war.

His latest trip follows talks this week at which Ukrainian and European officials pushed back against some of the U.S. proposals for how to settle the conflict, the deadliest in Europe since World War Two.

Witkoff’s meeting took place just hours after a car bomb killed a senior Russian military officer near Moscow, which the Kremlin blamed on Kyiv.

On Thursday, Trump criticised a Russian missile and drone attack on Kyiv that killed at least 12 people, and posted a message to Putin on social media that read: “Vladimir, STOP!”

Trump has warned both sides that the U.S. will abandon its effort unless there is genuine progress.

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