“I’m meeting with the Ukrainians this week,” Witkoff told Fox News “Special Report” host Bret Baier, when asked about the next steps in the Trump administration’s efforts to end Russia’s war in Ukraine.  

“So I will be meeting with them this week in New York, and that’s a big signal,” the president’s point man on Russia-Ukraine negotiations added. 

Trump has pushed for a bilateral meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, in the hopes that a face-to-face sitdown would allow the pair to hash out terms of a peace deal.  

The White House indicated Moscow was open to a president-level meeting after Trump met with Zelensky and seven other Western leaders at the White House on Aug. 18, but the Kremlin has since pushed back on the claim.

Witkoff asserted that Putin “absolutely” told Trump during their meeting in Alaska earlier this month that he wanted to see peace in Ukraine and put forward a proposal, which the Trump administration official acknowledged may not be good enough for the Ukrainian side to accept. 

“There’s a peace proposal on the table,” Witkoff said, noting that it  “involves Donetsk” and “may not be something that the Ukrainians can take.”