trump Sends envoy to Moscow Amidst Optimism and Sticking Points in Ukraine War Negotiations

US president Donald Trump said he would send special envoy steve Witkoff to meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Moscow to discuss developing proposals to end the Ukraine war, but despite White House optimism there was little sign of progress on core sticking points.

Mr Trump said negotiations had left “only a few remaining points of disagreement” but there was no breakthrough on the issues of territorial control and security guarantees and he dampened expectations of immediate peace summits.

“I look forward to hopefully meeting with President Zelenskyy and President Putin soon,but ONLY when the deal to end this War is FINAL or,in its final stages,” Mr Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform after a day of negotiations involving US,Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi.

The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said he would be willing to meet Mr trump quickly to discuss the final details of an agreement. Ukrainian officials said they were close to accepting the framework of a deal, but that some details could only be discussed at presidential level.

In his nightly address, Mr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian officials had been working “on the text of the document” prepared in a previous round of talks in Geneva and said that “the principles in this document can be developed into deeper agreements”.

“Our delegations reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva,” the secretary of Ukraine’s security council, Rustem Umerov, wrote on Facebook on Tuesday.

but there was no suggestion that the revised US-Ukraine agreement discussed in Geneva on Sunday would be something to wich Russia would agree.

Earlier on Tuesday, Russia warned that it will not accept critically important changes to the controversial US-proposed plan to end the war, after the White House claimed that only “a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details” stood in the way of a peace deal.

US and Russian officials met in Abu Dhabi and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy spoke to European leaders before they held a video conference involving states that back Kyiv in a so-called coalition of the willing.

According to Reuters, Mr Zelenskiy said Ukraine was ready to advance the US-backed framework and discuss disputed points with Mr Trump.

“Over the past week, the United States has made tremendous progress towards a peace deal,” said White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “There are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States.”

Moscow wants to move forward with a 28-point peace plan tabled by the US last week, which Ukraine and several European states regard as little more than a Kremlin wish list.

After talks in Geneva on Sunday, US, Ukrainian and European officials said they had made significant progress on a revised p