The war coming to an end? "Putin wants lasting peace"

"Maybe we are on the edge of something very, very important for the whole world," Witkoff said last night in an interview with the American channel Fox News.

US President Donald Trump wants to end the war in Ukraine and broke the diplomatic isolation imposed by the West on his Russian counterpart to discuss it.

His administration is holding separate talks with senior Russian and Ukrainian officials, but so far those talks have failed to lead to a comprehensive cessation of hostilities.

Diplomatic negotiations continue, without any decisive concessions from Moscow.

Kyiv and some Western countries accuse Russia, whose army is larger and better equipped at the front, of deliberately delaying the negotiations.

Wittkoff met with Putin in St. Petersburg on Friday for the third time since Trump returned to the White House in January.

The meeting, which lasted more than four hours and was attended by two close advisers of the Russian president, Yuri Ushakov and Kirill Dmitriyev, proved to be "convincing", the American envoy said, adding that "outlines" of a peace agreement are emerging.

Witkoff said that "trade opportunities" between the US and Russia are part of the negotiations and that this could "bring real stability to the region".