U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff said Monday that he “finally” got an answer to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s demands for peace during their meeting last week in Moscow.
Witkoff, who’s taken a leading role in Russia-Ukraine ceasefire talks, called his five-hour meeting with Putin “compelling” and said he sees a deal “emerging,” in an interview on Fox News Channel’s “Hannity” on Monday night.
“It was a compelling meeting,” Witkoff said. “And toward the end, we actually came up with — I’m going to say ‘finally,’ but I don’t mean it in the way that we were waiting, I mean it in the way that it took a while for us to get to this place — what Putin’s request is to get, to have a permanent peace here.”
“So, beyond a cease-fire,” he added, “we got an answer to that.”
Witkoff did not detail Putin’s demands for a permanent truce but said the peace deal “is about these so-called five territories,” adding that “there’s so much more to it.”
“There’s security protocols. There’s no NATO, NATO, Article 5,” the envoy continued. “I mean, it’s just a lot of detail attached to it. It’s a complicated situation from, you know— rooted in some real problematic things happening between the two countries.”
“And I think we might be on the verge of something that would be very, very important for the world at large,” he said.
The envoy also noted that he thinks there could be further commercial partnerships with Russia and the U.S. going forward.
“On top of that, I believe there’s a possibility to reshape the Russian-United States relationship through some very compelling commercial opportunities that I think give real stability to the region too,” he said.
Witkoff’s latest visit with Putin on Friday was his third meeting with the Russian leader in recent months.
The meeting also comes as Trump has signaled a desire to speed up peace talks. The president posted to Truth Social on Friday that Russia “has to get moving.”
“Too many people are DYING, thousands a week, in a terrible and senseless war,” he wrote. “A war that should have never happened, and wouldn’t have happened, if I were President!!!”
