U.S. President Donald Trump's envoy Steve Witkoff met Russian President Vladimir Putin for three hours in Moscow on Friday (April 25) to discuss the U.S. plan to end the war in Ukraine, and Trump said the two sides were "very close to a deal," despite apparent differences in their positions, Reuters reports.
Trump said in a social media post after Witkoff's meeting concluded that it was a good day of talks and called for a high-level meeting between Kyiv and Moscow to close a deal.
"Most of the major points are agreed to," Trump said in the post after landing in Rome for the funeral of Pope Francis on Saturday. "Stop the bloodshed, NOW."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy was also expected to attend the funeral, although he said on Friday he was not certain he could make it.
Russia and Ukraine have not held direct talks since the early weeks of the war, which started with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
