Russian President Vladimir Putin, presidential envoy Kirill Dmitriev and foreign policy aide Yuri Ushakov attend a meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump’s special envoy Steve Witkoff and son-in-law Jared Kushner at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, December 2, 2025. Sputnik/Alexander Kazakov/Pool via REUTERS
MOSCOW, Jan 22 – Russian President Vladimir Putin will on Thursday discuss a possible peace plan for Ukraine with U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner in Moscow after President Donald Trump said a deal to end the war was “reasonably close”.
The United States has held talks with Russia, and separately with Kyiv and European leaders, on various different drafts of a plan for ending the war in Ukraine, but no deal has yet been reached despite Trump’s repeated promises to clinch one.
Putin, speaking at a Russian Security Council meeting late on Wednesday, said that he would meet Trump special envoy Witkoff and Trump’s son-in-law Kushner in Moscow to “continue dialogue on the Ukrainian settlement” as well as Trump’s “Board of Peace” idea.
At stake is how to end the deadliest war in Europe since World War Two, the future of Ukraine, the extent to which European powers are sidelined and whether or not a peace deal brokered by the United States will endure.
“I believe they’re at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done,” Trump said, referring to Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. “And if they don’t, they’re stupid.”
Reporting by Reuters in Moscow; editing by Guy Faulconbridge
