The President of the United States, Donald Trump, confirmed this Friday that his special envoy Steve Witkoff and the White House advisor and son-in-law of the Republican president, Jared Kushner, will travel to Moscow with the task of presenting Russia with a proposal aimed at ending the war in Ukraine.
"They will carry with them a proposal to end the war. I have ended eight wars (...) I have not received any recognition for it. I have ended eight wars. Have I received the Nobel Prize? No, although the person who won it was kind enough to give it to me," he pointed out from the White House, referring to the Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado, who received the award.
In his statements, he also maintained that Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky "hate each other" and that the clash between them is due to a "personality" problem. "Do you know what hate is? They feel a deep hatred and that is getting in the way," he said.
Trump added that "it is very likely" that progress will be made in the talks, a message that contrasts with that of Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov, who emphasized that, "for the moment," there are no "concrete conditions" to stop the war. "The work continues and the contacts continue," the Russian representative stated regarding the options to reach an understanding with Kiev.
After their stop in the Russian capital, it is expected that President Trump's envoys will also travel to Ukraine. Zelensky has demanded that the meeting have "substantive content" and has emphasized the importance of Washington maintaining an "active" involvement in diplomatic efforts to achieve an end to the conflict, initiated by order of Russian President Vladimir Putin in February 2022.