Kremlin confirms US envoy will visit as talks on ending war in Ukraine continue

US special envoy Steve Witkoff, second left, and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, right, at the talks with the Ukrainian delegation at the US Mission to International Organisations in Geneva at the weekend (Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)

A senior Kremlin official confirmed that US special envoy Steve Witkoff is to visit Moscow next week as efforts pick up speed to find a consensus on ending the nearly four-year war between Russia and Ukraine.

But Yuri Ushakov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s foreign affairs adviser, insisted that Kremlin officials have not officially received the initial US peace proposal, although they have acknowledged that they have seen a copy obtained through back channels.