US team headed to Moscow for Ukraine talks as Putin visits Kursk
President Donald Trump said U.S. officials will travel to Russia to discuss a potential ceasefire in Ukraine.
The news comes 30 days after Ukrainian officials agreed to a ceasefire after a highly anticipated meeting with U.S. officials in Saudi Arabia.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier that “Bauer is indeed in their (Russian) court” and that the United States believes the only way to end the fight is through peaceful negotiations.
The Kremlin said it was studying a ceasefire proposal and a phone call between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin was possible.
Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky said the United States has now convinced Russia to agree to the “positive” proposal.
Speaking at the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said he had received “positive information” about the possibility of a ceasefire.
“But a positive message doesn’t make any sense,” he said. “It’s a very serious situation.”
Trump has not designated which officials to travel to Moscow.
However, News Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters at the White House that National Security Secretary Mike Waltz was talking to his Russian counterpart.
Earlier this week, a familiar source told the BBC that Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff would travel to Moscow for negotiations after talks in Jeddah.
The White House confirmed its plans on Wednesday.
“We urge the Russians to sign the plan. This is the closest we have to peace in this war,” Levitt said.
The Kremlin said it is looking at the proposed ceasefire and more details, and spokesman Dmitry Peskov said it will come “through various channels” in the next few days.
Trump said in the Oval Office that he believes the ceasefire makes sense for Russia and added without more details that there are also “a lot of drawbacks to Russia.”
“One side of us solves very complex situations. Almost solved. We also discuss the land and other things related to it,” Trump added. “We know the land area we are talking about, whether it is pulling backwards.”
To put pressure on Russia, Trump said he “can do things economically.”
“It’s very bad for Russia,” he said. “I don’t want to do that because I want peace.”
The Jeddah meeting was the first between U.S. and Ukrainian officials since February 28, which ended up stopping a shout in amid U.S. military aid and intelligence sharing.
The pause was cancelled after the Jeddah meeting, and Trump said he believed the “difficult” Ukrainian side and Zelensky wanted peace now.
Even as negotiations on a potential ceasefire are still underway, the fight in Ukraine has also taken place.
Russian drones and missiles reportedly attacked targets in Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyy Rih and in the port cities of Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Kharkiv.
The conflict also continued in Russia’s Kursk region, where Peskov said Russian troops were “successfully advancing” and reoccupies the areas owned by Ukrainian forces.
The Kremlin said Wednesday that President Putin visited the command post in the region. He was shown in videos released by the Kremlin along with his military chief Valery Gerasimov, both wearing combat equipment.
The Russian president visited the region for the first time since Ukraine invaded the border area last August.
Russian media reported that President Putin ordered the “complete liberation” of the region during his visit. He has not commented on the ceasefire proposal agreed on by Ukraine and the United States on Tuesday.
Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrsky also said on Wednesday that some of these troops were withdrawing from Kusk. “My priority has been and still saved the lives of Ukrainian soldiers in the most difficult situations,” he said in an article on the Telegram Message app.
