The US president has said he would meet Vladimir Zelensky and send envoys to Moscow later this week
RT: US President Donald Trump speaks at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on January 21, 2026. © Global Look Press / Lian Yi
Moscow
and Kiev are close to reaching an agreement on ending the Ukraine
conflict, US President Donald Trump told the World Economic Forum (WEF)
in Davos on Wednesday. He also announced he would be meeting Ukraine’s
Vladimir Zelensky on Thursday, the same day a team of US negotiators
would visit Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Washington
launched mediation efforts to resolve the conflict after Trump returned
to the White House last year. US officials have since held numerous
rounds of talks with their Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, although
the efforts have thus far not produced a breakthrough. The sides have
nevertheless called the meetings “constructive” and reported some progress.
“I think I can say that we're reasonably close,” Trump said, responding to a journalist’s question about the progress in the peace process. “I believe they [Russia and Ukraine] are at a point now where they can come together and get a deal done.”
The president did not elaborate on the details of a potential agreement but said that reaching one requires maintaining a “difficult balance.” According to Trump, there were moments when one side was “set” and ready for a deal and the other one would find the conditions unacceptable, and vice versa.
US-mediated
peace efforts intensified late last year. Trump’s initial peace plan
that was leaked to the media in November involved Kiev ceding territory
to Moscow, renouncing its NATO membership aspirations, among other
points. In December, Ukraine and its European backers presented a
counter-proposal, which had significantly distorted the original US
draft and was called a non-starter by Russia. Moscow still insisted it
was “fully ready” to resolve the conflict as long as its core security concerns are addressed.
On
Tuesday, US special envoy Steve Witkoff had a meeting with Putin's
envoy, Kirill Dmitriev, which they both praised as constructive.