A special envoy of United States President Donald Trump is visiting Russia, as Washington and Moscow have entered crunch time in hammering a ceasefire deal that would temporarily halt the war in Ukraine.Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed on Thursday that a US delegation will engage in discussions with Russian counterparts, as Russia’s state-run TASS news agency reported that a plane carrying US envoy Steve Witkoff had landed in Moscow.
The development came as Russia claimed on Thursday to have recaptured key territory in the Kursk region from Ukraine, signalling its upper hand in negotiations.
Witkoff, Trump’s Middle East envoy, has been playing a growing role in efforts to bring about an end to the three-year Ukraine war.
Trump said on Wednesday that “it’s up to Russia now” as his administration presses Moscow to agree to a proposal for a 30-day ceasefire that Ukraine said it would support.
Peskov would not comment on Moscow’s view of the ceasefire proposal. “Before the talks start, and they haven’t started yet, it would be wrong to talk about it in public,” he told reporters. Advertisement
However, top Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov, told state television that he had spoken to US National Security Adviser Mike Waltz to outline Russia’s position on the ceasefire proposal.
“I stated our position that this is nothing other than a temporary respite for the Ukrainian military, nothing more,” said Ushakov, a former ambassador to Washington who speaks for Russian President Vladimir Putin on major foreign policy issues.
“It seems to me that n …